The 05/09/16 edition of WWE Raw reviewed in about 4 minutes – featuring the go-home events for this Sunday’s Extreme Rules, AJ Styles finally snapping on Roman Reigns, Primo and Epico re-debut as The Shooting Stars, Stephanie McMahon somehow gets herself over and more.
SAMI ZAYN & KEVIN OWENS BEAT CESARO & THE MIZ
The first match of the night saw Cesaro take on Sami Zayn, with Kevin Owens and The Miz on commentary. Sami Zayn vs Cesaro – how can you screw that one up?
Well, I’ve got four words for ya: tag team match, playas.
That singles match turned into all four men fighting each other, so the Shane and Steph Connection made it Cesaro and Miz vs Owens and Zayn. If Owens walked out on Sami, he’d be out of the Intercontinental Title match at Extreme Rules.
This set up a great story for the match, with Owens and Zayn very reluctantly working together. Owens’ tags to Zayn were pretty much Kobashi-level chops. I want them to feud for a long time, but when that’s over, the eventual Steen-erico team is going to be great.
THE SHINING STARS RE-DEBUT
After weeks of teasing promos, Primo and Epico finally debuted their new tag team The Shining Stars on WWE Raw…to absolutely zero applause. The crowd was almost awkwardly silent, but that’s what you get when your gimmick is smelling flowers. They should try being matadors.
This is undoubtedly awful, but hear me out – so were the New Day when they first debuted.
The act needs to morph into something better, but their wrestling looked really strong. They even did a brainbuster. If they can find something actually entertaining in this mess, The Shining Stars might get over.
Here’s the other stuff that happened!
DEAN AMBROSE PROMO
Dean Ambrose challenged Chris Jericho to an Asylum Match – which is essentially a cage match with weapons hanging from the ceiling. A fire extinguisher, a barbed-wire bat, Mitch The Second – these are just some of the weapons that won’t be used because of WWE’s PG programming.
DANA BROOKE BEAT BECKY LYNCH
Dana Brooke won her debut match on the main roster – which is great, I’m a big fan of Dana, but why is Becky Lynch losing clean? She’s one of the most over women in the division.
BREEZE-ANGO BEAT THE GOLDEN TRUTH
The promo video recapping R-Truth and Goldust’s relationship over the last few months was brilliant, and it got the crowd really into this story. Tyler Breeze doubled his win record on WWE Raw for the year with another victory after Truth kicked Goldust by accident.
NEW DAY SEGMENT
The New Day used their New Day-Lorean time machine to go back in to the Vaudeville Vaudevillians’ era. This segment had the gag of the night when they went back to Kofi Kingston’s Jamaican gimmick by mistake. The Vaudeville Vaudevillains beat them down at the end ahead of their Tag Team Title match this Sunday.
D-VON VS BIG CASS
Big Cass continues to be booked strong, beating D-Von in under a minute. Hurry back, Enzo! Vince is going anything but sawft for the big guy.
KALISTO VS ALBERTO DEL RIO
Alberto del Rio defeated Kalisto with Rusev beating Sin Cara up on the outside. This was a nice little angle…unless it was setting up a League of Nations return. In which case, it was the worst angle ever.
Watch the video above to find out Oli’s thoughts on The Usos beating Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, AJ Styles finally snapping, Stephanie McMahon getting herself over at the Women’s Division’s expense, and more!
Oli Davis is the host of the WrestleTalk News. You can follow him on Twitter @OliDavis.
