You May Take Our Lives. But You’ll Never Take Our Raw! – A recap from 11/07/2016
Tonight’s Raw comes to us taped from Glasgow, Scotland in the UK.
I’m not going to waste too much of your time. This Raw was mainly to fill out the Raw Survivor Series teams, figure out who was going to answer Dolph’s IC Open Challenge, and to debut a new Cruiserweight in his home country. Oh, and did you guys know that Goldberg is going to face Brock Lesnar? Do you want to see a bunch of simulation footage in 2K17?
No?!!
Are you sure?
Well, we didn’t really plan anything else for 30 minutes of the broadcast…so we’re just going to air it anyway. Filling a 3 hour broadcast is hard guys.
Men’s Survivor Series Teams
Raw started off with the Commissioner announcing the 5th competitor, Seth Rollins. It was obvious you guys. Of course Kevin Owens and his best friend (fresh off a backstage shoot fight with Sin Cara) complain. Seth is given assurances that Kevin and Jericho will behave while Rollins puts his quest for the Universal Title on hold.
It’s pretty obvious that this is going to fall apart at Survivor Series but I’m ok with that.
Steph announces that they’ll meet in a 5-on-5 match for…uh…team building or something.
Before the match, Kev and Chris try to convince Braun to be on their “team” against Seth and Roman. But Braun announces that he’s on Team Braun.
The main event was actually excellent. There was actually a lot of great psychology here. Seth and Roman teased a lot of Shield spots. Jericho and Kev worked together a lot. All four of them teamed up on Braun.
A couple of spots of note: 1) Seth almost reverses a Pop-up Powerbomb into a pedigree. 2) A Powerbomb of Jericho onto Braun Strowman on a table. 3) A superman punch to Kevin Owens causes him to fall onto Jericho for the pinfall. A perfect way to end the episode and tease the breakup.
Women’s Team
This whole promo got out of hand fast. I love the British Isle crowds but this one maybe went a little too far. Michael Cole introduced the Women’s Team: Charlotte, Nia, Fox, and Bayley. All hell broke lose when Bayley came out.
“Heeeeeeyyyyyy, Heeeeyyyyy Bayley. I wanna know-oooohhhh-ooooohhhh. Will you be my girl.”
No matter who was talking, it didn’t stop. Props to the ladies, Charlotte especially, for playing into the crowd and trying to get the promo moving.
After a fake out trying to introduce Dana Brooke as the 5th member, it was revealed that Sasha Banks is actually the 5th member and Dana Brooke will serve the equivalent role that Natalya will for the SmackDown ladies.
Even though they were happy to see Sasha, they still didn’t stop singing for Bayley.
Of course we had a 6-woman tag match because it’s the best way to build a team to trust each other. It was a fine match and actually good to see Alicia get to do something on Raw. The match is basically what you’d expect but bolstered by the raucous Scottish crowd.
Bayley picks up the pin on Charlotte here.
Tag Team…Team
Here’s the lineup:
- The New Day – Captains
- Enzo Amore and Big Cass
- Anderson and Gallows
- Shining Stars*
- Cesaro and Sheamus
The four teams that weren’t the team captains started this segment in the ring. Sheamus was actually really good at getting some heat here. He had some very specific insults for the crowd that I didn’t understand and I feel like they weren’t planned. You could tell he was really enjoying himself.
Because they’re in Scotland, The New Day are decked out in kilts and Francesca II has been replaced by Agnes, a set of bagpipes. They basically do the speech from Braveheart. I’ll be honest, I read the spoiler of this and I thought it would be terrible. I actually really enjoyed this and the main event a lot.
It ends up with Anderson and Gallows in a match with the forever tag champs. The Club wins with a Magic Killer because this match doesn’t matter.
*R-Truth traded his team’s spot for a place at the Shinning Stars resort. Goldust vows to get it back but they fail. That’s a bummer.
Noam Dar Debuts
In the biggest pop ever for the Cruiserweight devision, Noam Dar debuts in his home country. Get used to crickets in the future. We had Sin Cara and Swann Vs. Kendrick and Dar. It was a good match, but the ending was a little wonky. But Dar looked great here. Kendrick gets rolled up by Swann for the pin.
Kendrick berates Dar afterwards and Noam gets to beat down Kendrick for consolation of having to lose his debut.
Welcome to the roster Noam.
And The Rest
- Foley was going to let Zayn challenge Ziggler for the IC title but Steph was going to let Rusev. Naturally, a match needed to happen. Zayn wins and will be challenging the Showoff in one of the few singles matches on the card.
- Did I mention that the Goldberg Vs. Lesnar II match is happening at Survivor Series?
- Sin Cara is too big to be in the Cruiserweight devision. I think we need a live weigh-in on next week’s Raw.
A Reminder to Vote
If you are in the US, here’s a reminder to vote on election day. It’s a historic election: the first with a female candidate from a major party and the first WWE Hall of Famer on the national ticket. Make your voice heard!