The Memorial Day Show – A Raw Recap for 5/29/17

Tonight’s Raw comes to us from Greenville, South Carolina, where Matt and one-time podcast guest Daisy were in attendance.

The Good

Miz TV

I feel like it’s rare to have a Miz TV segment that I’m excited about.  Normally it involves Miz insulting someone until he eats their finisher.  He then complains to the GM and you have a match.  Tonight wasn’t altogether different, but it was an exciting new matchup.  Miz interviewed Sheamus and Cesaro but they were quick to pile on both Dean and the Hardy Boyz, their opponents for Extreme Rules.  Of course, that leads to a matchup.  Michele and I were DELIGHTED!

Top Guys are Back!

Looks like it was them backstage last week…

The Enzo Amore is Attacked Yet Again

Cass isn’t buying that The Revival isn’t behind these sneak attacks.

Corey Graves insinuates that perhaps Cass had something to do with it which leads to a stare down at the commentary table.  This is good stuff…

Something Weird is Going On Backstage

Speaking of Graves, someone called Kurt Angle and embarrassment.  Either Corey orchestrated this or he’s a pawn in this game.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s behind…whatever this is.

Samoa Joe def. Finn Bálor and Bray Wyatt

This was my favorite match of the night.  I loved how Joe and Wyatt would work together for one moment and then Bray would clothesline Joe out of nowhere in the next moment.  It was exciting and chaotic.  There was at once a familiarity and a newness to the matchup that I hope doesn’t get old fast.  I do miss the chemistry that Joe and Finn have in the ring together.  I’m glad they’re bringing that in as I feel like Joe’s direction has been lacking.

If you pet him in more matches like this, he’s going to get over on the Main roster.

The Bad

This is Your Life

This segment was all sorts of terrible.  Kudos to Alexa for trying to make that work but it seems like an intern in Creative wrote this 30 minutes before air.  And you know they didn’t write it because they had to hire those local actors and give them time to memorize everything.  The good that I can take away from it is that Alexa is good with the “What?” chants.  She works it into her material.  Also, she’s right.  We are tired of hearing that Bayley wanted to be a WWE Superstar.

But hey, at least she throughly described the rules for the kendo stick on a pole match.

Hardyz and Ambrose Vs. Miz, Sheamus, and Cesaro

Yes, I know I have this is the good column as well.  I loved the setup of this, but the execution was lacking.  It seemed like Matt Hardy specifically had a lot of missed cues here.  And his recent work has been good.  Tonight he just seemed to have some ring rust or…something.  Lots of missed tags where Matt specifically pulled his hand away from Dean when it seemed like he remembered it was Jeff’s turn.  And the weird delay for the Twist of Fate was just bad.  I love the idea of this pairing and match, but it fell short.  I hope we get another version of this down the road and they knock it out of the park.

The Matches

• Elias Samson defeats (local talent) Zac Evans
• Rich Swann defeats Noam Dar with a Phoenix Splash – Sasha Banks helped to fend off interference from Alicia Fox and to setup a mixed tag match at Extreme Rules.  Swann coerced her into dancing as well.
• Austin Aries & Gentleman Jack Gallagher def. WWE Cruiserweight Champion Neville & TJP – A Double locked in the Last Chancery after a Phoenix Splash from Neville missed.  It’s apparently the first time Neville has tapped out since joining the Cruiserweight Devision.  He was not happy and refused to talk to the human microphone stand asking him questions in the back.
• Roman Reigns def. Seth Rollins – Maybe because it was late and I watched Raw after already watching a 3 hour baseball game, but I just wasn’t that into this match.  I feel like this was a good match for the crowd in attendance but I just remembered how great of a match they had at Money in the Bank last year when Rollins reversed the Spear into a Pedigree.  Put on that caliber of a match or I just don’t want to see it.
• Titus def. Kalisto – I don’t think any further comment is really needed.

And Finally…

And if you think Goldust is a jobber…