Sierra Hotel India Echo Lima Delta Assemble! – A Raw Recap for 10/2/17

Tonight’s Raw took place in Denver, CO.  Michael Cole is off tonight for his son’s wedding.  It’s the second time he’s missed Raw in 20 years.

Heavy Hearts

Las Vegas, Puerto Rico…today’s Raw starts with a heavy heart.  Wrestling is escapism.  It’s sometimes a proxy for the battles we go through in our own lives.  We want Sami Zayn, Sting, and the Travis Banks of the world to succeed and beat back the demons and the bad guys.

I don’t know if the weekend’s events inspired the Superstars to work extra hard or if it was just a particularly good episode of Raw anyway.  Either way, thank you WWE.

And if you’d like to help out, the American Red Cross is a good place to start.

Sierra Hotel India Echo Lima Delta Assemble!

It’s happening!

Seth Rollins Vs. Braun Strowman

To prove he wasn’t so predictable, Seth decided this would be a good idea.

It was not a good idea.

Rollins used his quickness to good effect early one, but that wasn’t enough to end up on the wrong side of Braun’s finisher again and again.  Strowman won, obviously.

But Strowman wasn’t finished with Seth yet!  But as he was going to return to the ring one last time to put more hurt on Rollins, Dean attempts to come to the rescue.  He’s not successful, of course, but at least he keeps Rollins from suffering any more damage.  Braun leaves and guess who comes out to pick the bones?

Roman Reigns Vs. The Miz (c) for the Intercontinental Championship

Miz and the Miztourage enter from the crowd, just as the Shield used to do.  Roman isn’t to happy out of the gate.  After all, he got beat down last week.  He’s here for revenge.

He did one of the smartest things I’ve ever seen him do.  Before the bell could ring to start the match, Roman leaves the ring and pummels Axel and Dallas with Superman punches.  His attack sends them far from ringside.  Now Roman only has to contend with The Miz himself.  By making sure he does it before the bell, he avoids the DQ himself.  He further reduces the field to a simple one-on-one title defense.

The actual match is a little bit of a repeat of last week.  Yes Kicks It Kicks to a sitout Powerbomb?  Yep.

Miz almost prevailed on his own.  He reversed a Superman Punch into a Skull Crushing Finale.  But that wasn’t enough to keep the Big Dog down.  Just as Reigns is about to go for the Spear, our old friends Sheamus and Cesaro appear to beat down poor Roman.  Gotch neutralizer?  Check.  Brogue Kick?  Check.  Skull Crushing Finale?  Check.

The internet was a little down on the reunion last week.  The Miz and The Miztourage Vs. The Shield would be a squash match.  If you’re going to reunite the Shield, it better be for something good.  WWE heard you:

They’ve Made a Huge Mistake

Roman is sitting alone in the dressing room.  He looks to his right and Dean is there.  They nod at each other.  He hears a commotion to his left and Seth is there.  They nod.  They look at each other.  They know what they need to do.  Coincidentally, the arena next week is where The Shield first appeared and where they imploded.  This has been the plan for quite a while.

And I love it.

Everything Else

• After Alexa (or Emma or Foxy) filled Mickie James’ dressing room with Depends, a walker, and other “old lady” stuff, the veteran demands a match with Bliss.  She gets Nia.  The had a decent match.  James was able to reverse some kind of superplex into what they called a “Tornado DDT”.  It looked more like a bulldog with Mickie planting Nia’s face on the canvas.  Nia looked completely out of it.  Mickie almost got the pinfall but Alexa interfered and broke the count.  I’m not sure it made sense for Alexa to break the count.  If she was getting a title shot for beating Nia, I missed that part.  Either way, Kurt Angle was impressed with Mickie’s performance and granted a title shot at TLC.  That does beg the question, who is Asuka facing?
• Bayley and Sasha defeat Alicia Fox and Emma via a Bayley-to-Belly.  It didn’t really seem to do much for anything except for allow Bayley to win a match two weeks in a row.  I think they’re trying to rehab her character a bit.
• Bray interrupted a Bálor promo to basically say that Sister Abigail is coming.  It was creepy.
  • I hope something awesome comes from the Sister Abigail storyline.  They’ve teased her coming before but have backed away every time.  I hope it’s cool.  There’s a good chance it will be someone lame though.  Friend of the site Lance asked if it was going to be Asuka.  That’s truly a horrifying thought.
• Elias destroys Titus O’Neil with a Drift Away.
• Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson destroy Matt Hardy and Jason Jordan with a Magic Killer to the Woken one.
• Dana Warrior presented Pink WWE Championships to 3 breast cancer survivors.
• Because everyone attacked Enzo last week, no one in the Cruiserweight division is eligible to get a title shot.  To make matters worse, ‘Zo got an additional guarantee from Angle that anyone that touched him would be fired.  He used that as an opportunity to berate the entire Cruiserweight division to their faces.  Everyone except for Tozawa.  Tozawa said that he liked Enzo on Twitter once.
  • Angle knew that Enzo needed a challenger to keep the brand relevant.  And since no Cruiserweight was eligible, it’s time to bring in some new blood.  He made an acquisition.  It’s Kalisto!  Yeah…Denver was unimpressed to.  He’s here to do some Lucha Things with Enzo.