We Don’t Shoot From The Hip Anymore, We’ve Got Grenade Launchers – Monday Night Raw Recap – September 11, 2017

WWE kicked off Monday Night Raw in Anaheim with a trademark remembrance moment for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and World Trade Center.  I’m kicking off this recap with a prayer for everyone affected by the chaos and devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Irma.  The combination of Irma and Harvey marks the first time in the history of modern civilization that two Category 4 force hurricanes have made landfall in the United States in the same year.  So yes, nature is self-correcting because we’ve been so horrible to the gift we’ve been given in the planet we call home.  I’m not going to go on a science rant, because I’m already a day late with my recap because Irma took my cable and internet service.  So let’s get this party started.

I’m telling myself that no one depends on this recap to get them all of the information about what happened during the show.  Because I have no cable, I was limited to the Hulu version which tends to not feature anything to do with the Cruiserweight or Women’s Divisions.  I’m going to use the information available to me outside of my recap points to fill you in on what else happened, but hopefully it wasn’t much.

Monday Night Raw

Make Them Respect You

Jason Jordan posted this photo last night on Twitter with the header here as the caption.  When this match was getting going, I thought to myself “if Jason Jordan is the new jobber, whatever will they do with Curt Hawkins?”  When this match ended, I was blown away.  These two not only work really well together, but they allowed each other to display just how good the other is.  Roman is a ridiculous talent with lackluster script-spewing skills (his mic skills are fine when he’s left to his own personality).  Jordan is probably top three most talented pure technical wrestler on the roster (Some order of Ziggler and Chad Gable are probably 1-2).  This match was fantastic.  So while it ended up Roman picking up the pinfall following a wicked spear, this moment of sportsmanship was probably scripted, but was definitely the way to cap off what they had just done in the ring.  I really enjoy this “right on the cusp” thing they’re doing with Jason Jordan, as that’s actually how it feels after his performance opposite John Cena last week and Roman this week.  Don’t push the daddy angle as much, I like this.

Following the match, John Cena came to the ring for another “I’m going to talk down to you because your promo work sucks” session.  This one seemed particularly brutal, even from the viewpoint of all of this as shoot promos, because he actually called out the failed wellness test.  That seemed pretty f***ed, and not even the most brutal promo moment of the show.

Raw Remembers Their Entire Tag Team Division (sort of)

Rollins and Ambrose were at commentary awaiting a match between The Good Brothers (Gallows and Anderson) and The Bar (Sheamus and Cesaro).  It didn’t get that far because The Bar talked trash on the stage to the point where it came to blows, with both of the “heel” teams attacking Rollins and Ambrose.  They would find Angle in the back and demand a piece of all of them tonight.  Kurt “in good conscience” couldn’t let that happen so close to No Mercy, but directed them to find another tag team and they’d get a shot in an 8-man tag match.

This wasn’t necessarily an important moment in the show, Rollins and Ambrose hit their combination Jumping Knee to Dirty Deeds thing to seal the deal on Anderson, but Matt Hardy has come unhinged, to the point where he even seemed to make Ambrose nervous.  This is going forward and I’m f***ing thrilled.  As long as they let The Hardyz run with it and don’t turn The Final Deletion into the House of Horrors.   The sort of here is entirely about Rhyno and Slater.

Braun Strowman is an Otherworldly Athlete

Braun had two moments on Monday Night Raw.  The first was when he came to the ring to confront Brock Lesnar after Paul Heyman called him out on Brock’s behalf.  Brock took Strowman to Suplex City, and Strowman rolled back up to his feet so fast that Lesnar hadn’t even turned back around yet.  That’s when Strowman took over, choke slamming and running power slamming The Beast and leaving another body in his wake (is that insensitive with all the Hurricane stuff?  Meh, nobody reads this far down).

His second moment was when he was allowed to simply destroy John Cena in a singles match.  Cena, as is expected, got to land his spots, even landing an AA on the nearly 400 pound athlete.  But it wasn’t enough.  John Cena wins…..by disqualification when Braun Strowman hit a Running Powerslam on the steel ring steps.

He’s ridiculously strong, insanely fast for 400 pounds, agile, limber, and is the only one of the newer bunch of superstars that doesn’t seem to be on the wrong side of the locker room.  His star is strapped to a rocket ship, and at No Mercy, it is going to enter orbit as he becomes Universal Champion.

Other Stuff:

• The Miz destroys Enzo Amore on the mic before he destroys him in the ring:  I think Enzo may have gotten the win by DQ because the Miztourage beat the hell out of him, but that didn’t stop Miz from unleashing hell in the form of an all out assault on your character promo like the one he dealt Enzo tonight.  Nothing was off limits, from Enzo being kicked off the tour bus because nobody likes him or him squandering his opportunities so he can hang out with shitty rappers and prostitutes.  It was epic.  I don’t even remember the match at all because I was blown away by the promo and couldn’t focus.
• In other Miz news, Maryse is pregnant, so there will be a Little A -Lister.
• Asuka is joining the Raw Roster, but not tonight.  She’s “Coming Soon.”  This information is not taken well by Alexa Bliss, who attempts to use it to get Nia back on her side.  Nia Jax informed Alexa that she gets a shot at her, next week.  I don’t think it’s for the title though.
• I ripped all this from Cageside Seats Recap just so you’d have the info, unfortunately they didn’t really give me straight up info:
  • Sasha Banks and Emma had a match with Nia and Alexa on commentary.
  • Bray Wyatt talked about face paint as a means of covering insecurities.  Insecure Demons still get wins, so I don’t really know what the hell the point of this is?
  • Walking with Elias: Anaheim Edition.  I don’t like that they edit these segments out of the Hulu version.

Overall:

The matches were damn good, at least the two I saw with Roman-Jordan and Cena-Strowman, plus watching Strowman maul Brock Lesnar will probably never not be fun.  I don’t know what I like more either, watching Strowman try to drive Lesnar through the Earth’s crust and use his body to implode the planet from the core or watching Paul Heyman’s face while it is happening.  I love the ideas of the big men, usually, but they’re never fully functional athletes.  Take a look at Great Khali, big huge dude that was intimidating, but he couldn’t talk and he moved with the pace of a 98 year old double amputee.  Braun Strowman is literally the perfect embodiment of what a big man in WWE should have always been.

Good show, hopefully Irma will let me have cable back in the next few minutes since Vince is finally returning to Smackdown Live.