Monday Night Raw from everyone’s favorite place….Florida

June 28, 2016 Matt Dowd
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The June 27, 2016 edition of Monday Night Raw comes to you live from Tampa, Florida, a city wedged somewhere between the Devil’s Armpit (Orlando) and his asshole (Panama City).  A state who’s greatest export has been Tim Tebow’s SEC Network commentary, but I digress.

But, if you’re going to do a show in Florida, you might as well go big or stay home, these people have been wasted since 8:15 this morning, so they’re likely to riot (Ok, I promise, no more shots at how ridiculous Florida is).

Roman wasn’t there, obviously, so WWE found someone else we all absolutely hate:

 

FATAL 1,000 WAY FOR THE WWE TITLE

This episode of Raw did something that few of us actually expected them to pull the trigger on, they acknowledged the Roman Reigns wellness policy violation and suspension that will keep him out of action until just before Battleground, where he’s still very much on the card for the Triple Threat Match for the WWE Title even though he won’t be around for the entire month’s build.

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Seth Rollins marched out and said what we were all thinking, basically that Roman shouldn’t be a part of the match and that he’s nothing but an embarrassment and a disappointment, points to which Stephanie McMahon agreed to, as she came out and interjected herself into the conversation that went on to include Champ Ambrose, THE CHAMP JOHN CENA, and The Phenomenal AJ Styles (side note, why are they making such a fuss about overusing Phenomenal?  They introduce him as such on the way down, and when he wins a match the ring announcer announces that The Phenomenal AJ Styles?  Just overkill).

 

In true form, she announces that AJ will have a match with Ambrose and Cena will have one with Rollins, and if either of those competitors not already in the Triple Threat pull of the win, they are included in the match.  Sounds great, especially those two matchups.  We’ve already seen what Rollins and Cena can do together in the ring, and the idea of AJ and Ambrose is just great.  Unfortunately, if you’ve ever watched WWE, ever, you already know that this is simply a move to further the AJ and Cena feud, so as you’d expect, The Club costs TFTRTP his shot in his match against Rollins, and Cena costs AJ his.  Nothing lost, nothing gained, just no surprises to be found here anywhere.  This inevitably has to come down to a Team Cena V The Club at Battleground, because there’s no way they don’t just go ahead and use all three men in that match again.

Now what you’ve all been waiting for…Kane?

I’m going to write this review like they book PPV events, hit a high point and then give you a breather.  It will both keep you around until the bottom, where there may or may not be a hidden Todd Chrisley gif.

The Miz defends his title against a man who has clearly done something to become Number One Contender…Kane.  Maryse fakes an ankle injury on the outside and Miz takes a countout loss but retains.  I guess they’re done filming The Marine 17 – Issues with the VA Hospital?

This man is pro-wrestling to me

Dean Ambrose checked Chris Jericho into Asylum early Large image-1463755478

Drink it in man.  For as long as I’ve been watching wrestling, from the time when both companies still existed, there has been one constant: Chris Jericho.  He’s evolved from weird ponytail WCW Champ Jericho through the Y2J Era, now he’s in PG-Era Sad Dad Jericho mode and he’s still slaying, at least to me.  No, “Stupid Idiot” isn’t the best of Jericho, but considering how limited he is, he can’t exactly revert back to the shit he used to say in the Attitude Era, although him shouting 69 while he was beating on Ambrose in that Ladder Match was quite confusing, until JBL cleared up that he was pinned with 69 thumb tacks at Extreme Rules.

In this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, The Highlight Reel brings you Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, discussing their long running hatred of one another.  We will get the “Closure Match” at Battleground, although I highly doubt it will be the last time we see these two against each other.

How do we get Sasha to Summerslam for the title??

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Sasha teamed with Paige to take on Charlotte and her minion.  Sasha and Paige got the victory, and they booked this one to make Sasha look fantastic.  I hate that rather than tell actual stories they do this with the women’s division, but it’s better than what they used to do.

Enzo and Cass take on ….. (hey, what were your names again?), and New Day – Wyatt Family is the feud you didn’t realize you absolutely wanted

The Smacktalker Skywalker makes everything entertaining, and Big Cass just rains hell on their opponents.  These two should already have the belts, but that’ll have to wait until SS because right now The New Day are preoccupied.

 

I won’t lie, I never really considered the idea of The New Day in a feud with The Wyatt Family, but it makes so much sense.  The New Day are a great comedic act that bring color and lightheartedness to the program and kids love them.  Bray Wyatt is Charlie Manson.  These two factions are wonderful together, it’s just a shame that Harper is still out hurt because he’s the strongest in ring performer of the Wyatt group and he won’t get a chance to be a part of this.

Everything else:

Titus and Rusev again: Who really cares here?  Expect this to string on until the preshow match for Battleground (and probably Summerslam and Clash of Champions, then again sometime around Hell in a Cell).

Becky Lynch hates Natalya: Instead of wrestling Summer Rae as scheduled, Becky shot right past the ring and beat the hell out of Natalya who was out on commentary, which is great, and this may be the best scripting they’ve done for the women in almost a year.

The Social Outcasts are Back: And?  They’re just going to go back to getting squashed, which would be ok if there were ever any purpose in it.  Why do they lose to teams that no one gives a shit about.  Why not just have them in singles matches when you need to do things like make Titus look good going into another title match against Rusev without him having to face Rusev on every televised broadcast for 2 months?

Then there was this Bad Ass stuff right here:

 

You know, when I think back on Wrestlemania, I still remember the unparalleled disappointment that was the Brock Lesnar No Holds Barred Match.  Lesnar’s pansy ass wouldn’t take a bump.  Look at Cena.  He’s got nothing to prove to anybody, and takes a bump on the steel entranceway.  That’s just baller, and that’s one of the thousand reasons why he’s awesome.  And he speaks Mandarin in full fluid sentences.  Just awesome.

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