Raw is ‘Murica

Monday Night Raw came to us live from Columbus, Ohio for a special July 4th broadcast which even featured a swan dive into the depths of the roster to pit America Vs all-comers, but we’ll get to that in a bit, because I enjoyed the ending of it.

John Cena, The Club, and The Realest Guys in the Room

If you didn’t watch Raw, you missed something magical.  The Club cut a really fun promo about how they were going to beat up John Cena for all of our national holidays.  They showed something they’ve not been good at up until now, personality, and this whole thing really just worked for me.  The Club is that group of guys that hang out at the local bar and nobody really likes them, but they think they’re the most bad ass thing ever and they end up starting a bunch of bar fights.

So now you’ve got a feud that consists of John Cena’s already wildly entertaining ring persona combined with an almost renewed Club equipped with humor and self-assurance….what else could they bring to the table to make this better?  Oh yeah, how about we even the odds in this 1-on-3 dance we’ve been at for weeks now.

That’s right, team Cena is now rounded out with the Realest Guys in the Room, and I can’t wait for it.  Now when Big Cass tags Cena and slams him down for the Rocket Launcher, I may die of happiness.  Thank you for this, WWE.  You have no idea how much I’m truly enjoying all of this.  Or in Cena’s words:

Climb aboard the embarrassment train!!!

The latest in this long line of former GM characters parading out to campaign for the helm of Smackdown got another hat tossed in the ring last night as Vickie Guerrero came out and lobbied for her chance at running the blue brand before she was escorted away by security and Dolph Ziggler pretended not to know who she was.  Only two more episodes of Raw before the brand split, so it’s only a matter of when they’ll parade Bischoff out for the embarrassment tour.

And we all know that Hulk Hogan is going to be the surprise GM of Smackdown anyway.

PROMO CITY

I get it, you’re running with a light staff on account of the holiday and you’re really not going to sink tons of creative thought into a holiday episode (see Memorial Day 2016…), so I expected some promos to fill the void and that’s what we got.  As anticipated, a pre-recorded Wyatt Family video was shown, but less expected was the promo to make Baron Corbin look like an even bigger badass than he already seemed, you know, not withstanding the fact that the main audience has only ever seen him face Dolph Ziggler 90 times.

“My arrival signals the End of Days for anyone who stands in my way!” – @BaronCorbinWWE#RAWpic.twitter.com/feAzRJi7lv

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) July 5, 2016

New Day did an in ring promo where Xavier Woods continued to look like Bray Wyatt may actually be the devil, or at the very least that Strowman kidnapped his family and is threatening to eat them all one by one.  I’m not necessarily fearful of Wyatt, but Strowman is just an ungodly presence.  Xavier also pointed out that the fact that Kofi and E didn’t seem worried about the Wyatt’s might not bode well for their chances of survival at Battleground.  They’ve got to be leaning towards some sort of New Day split.

YAY!  The Ladies got two segments

Becky Lynch put an ass-mauling on Summer Rae, which is sad because Summer showed some real promise on Smackdown last week and in other appearances of late with her in ring skills, but I get it, Becky has to maul everything standing between her and Natalya, who was watching on a monitor in the back.  The Lass Kicker is going to bring hell to Battleground, so Nat is going to need all the Hart she can muster to get out of there in one piece.  Or they’ll randomly not have this match at Battleground and the feud will just disappear.  It wouldn’t be the first time in the last calendar year they’ve inexplicably done that to Becky.

The Boss and the Best had a back and forth.  I was truly hopeful that in her stay of television appearances that they had sent her to the PC to work with the team on her promos.  The content is always fine, just not delivered very well.  She’ll get it, they’ll just have to give her more time to get the hang of it, like Charlotte did.  Over time, working with Daddy Ric really helped Charlotte come out of her shell with a microphone, and the heel turn gave her the opportunity to really establish herself as a great asshole character.  I think it might be easier to get your footing as a heel.  Maybe that’s why Corbin is getting better traction than Apollo Crews, or why we like Seth Rollins even though he’s the bad guy and Roman just doesn’t get over with us.

The Meat and Potatoes….That’s as American as it gets right?

Team USA (Dudleys, Jack Swagger, Big Show, Mark Henry, Zack Ryder, Apollo Crews and Kane vs. Multi-National Team (Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho, Sheamus, Lucha Dragons, Cesaro, Alberto Del Rio, Sami Zayn)

I can’t find a picture that really captures this.  Does anyone else notice the intense size difference of Team America compared to the Foreign Entity Team?  Show, Henry and Kane alone account for 1,000 pounds.  Sheamus is the heaviest dude on the other team and he’s only mid 200s.

None of that matters though, because it’s AMERICA’S GD BIRTHDAY DAMN IT, so Zack Ryder hits the Rough Ryder for the win.  His finisher even has a patriotic name, throwback to Teddy Roosevelt.  Good for Ryder, Woo Woo Woo.

Everything Else:

Some of this is down here just because it doesn’t really dictate any actual attention, even though some of these are pretty good match ups.

Seth Rollins Def. Dolph Ziggler: Ziggler is relegated to this jobber role far too often now.  It is ok when you have a former champ taking losses to new guys to help get them over, but sometimes you’ve at least got to let us think he has a chance in his matches.  You knew he didn’t here, because they can’t have Rollins lose any momentum going into Battleground.

Dean Ambrose Def. The Miz: You saw this match on Smackdown.  Two good performers, good match, just nothing particularly fresh about it.

Rusev Crush Titus Again:  Because why the hell is Titus O’Neil even in the conversation for a title belt?  He wasn’t even a good Tag Champ, why give him a singles belt?  Rusev is a great champion, but they’ve got to give him fresh matchups or they are going to start to take away any legitimacy that Cena built for the US Title with the Open Challenge.

What the hell is with the Darren Young videos:  I know, the joke is there about making something great again, and Bob Backlund is a psychotic old bastard, but there’s about as much of a point in using Darren Young here as there is giving Titus a singles title push, because neither of them are particularly entertaining.  If we were going to make something great again, could we do these with Ziggler, who was great to begin with and is actually quite funny?

Golden Truth Def. The Vaudevillians with FaBreeze at Ringside:  Having the extra team at ringside had no payoff, as they participated only in that capacity.  Golden Truth made quick work of The Vaudevillians, who seem to have lost every inch of traction they had built.  They just had a tag title shot, right?  I’m confused with the booking, yet again, but that’s what we’re used to so I don’t know why I am surprised.

No Todd Chrisley gifs this week.  See you next week.