Hello everyone! As we sit down and settle in for another Nutshell, I can promise you one thing with near certainty: we won’t have a show anything close to what last week gave us. That being said, right or wrong, heading to Crown Jewel, we get the final round of hype from the red brand. There will also surely be some follow up from Evolution on Sunday night, as the women gave us an impressive show. Last but not least, there should be some follow up on the shocking end to last week’s RAW, which gave us new tag team champions and former partners all at the same time. Sit back, relax and let’s crack open this Nutshell!
Best Match of the night:
Honestly, nothing super great. Nia and Ember was decent. The ten woman tag match was satisfying for the most part. But there wasn’t a match on the show that was terribly memorable.
Worst match of the night:
Oh, we have options here…
I think for my taste, I will say this goes to Jinder Mahal and Elias. Nothing against Elias at all…this is one hundred percent a reflection on how I do not want to watch Mahal. For what Elias did last week, this was a step backwards. Or, if not so harsh, it at least did not do enough to capitalize on last week.
Crowd Chants of the Night:
Get these hands
One more time
Lita! Lita!
Roman! Roman! Roman!
Thank you Roman
You sold out
Undertaker
Star of the Night
Hmm. Not picking just one, but let’s go with the majority of those in the ten woman tag match, shall we?
Upset of the Night:
Roode and Gable over the Authors (and Ascension). I like Bobby and Chad, but AoP need to get pushed and need the belts soon, I believe.
Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:
Quite a segment between Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman and Baron Corbin. While I know why Corbin was there as acting GM, having him get physically involved wasn’t terribly useful. But, it let the two big men get some interaction ahead of Friday’s Crown Jewel.
Botch of the night:
With all due respect to Lita and Trish Stratus, they own the botch tonight. Lita went for a Whisper in the Wind off of the back of Trish, and it looked like Stratus wasn’t really ready to support Lita’s push off, or Lita mis-jumped slightly. Could have looked a lot better, but, it gets to be a bothch
Noteworthy Moment:
Ronda Rousey does owe Nia Jax a match for the RAW Women’s Championship…but her next PPV opponent is going to be none other than SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch. The match happens at Survivor Series. Will THIS be the match that manages to set up the Horsewomen? I have to think that if Kairi Sane wins back the NXT title the night before, we will see Rousey with some backup on Sunday.
As had been expected for a while now, once news of John Cena’s refusal to go to Saudi Arabia was made known, WWE has removed Cena from Crown Jewel. In his place, we get an injured Bobby Lashley.
One thought on Cena’s removal. It’s kind of convenient, no? I mean, look at the brackets. Until they yanked Cena, RAW had 3 faces and only one heel. In terms of deserving, or better choices, you could have suggested someone hot like Drew McIntyre-if you wanted a heel. Or, Elias, if you wanted someone popular and on the rise.
Nice RAW debut for Lucha House Party. Could you imagine if WWE had an outstanding fourth Latino star to add to the group….
Overall lowlights:
Hard to believe this is going to land here…but I wasn’t a fan of the Ambrose-Rollins follow up, for a few reasons.
First, we saw the silent heel bit not all that long ago in NXT with Tommaso Ciampa. Whether Creative knowingly ripped that off and re-used it or not, it did not feel new or fresh. Ciampa did it better.
Second, it actually bothers me that Rollins, in a promo being cut on Ambrose, invoked Roman Reigns‘ leukemia. Look, I get it…last week WAS emotional, and doing the turn last week made it that much more significant…but that should pretty much end leveraging Reigns’ diagnosis for the sake of heat.
Third, it was just anti-climactic. No physical contact, the two didn’t even get close. Dean has to speak soon or it’s just going to be odd. I think Ciampa stayed quiet for several weeks of promos before he spoke…here’s hoping that we don’t have to wait that long to get something moving on this one.
Overall highlights:
The women got a decent amount of time to show off tonight. If only Evolution were this coming weekend, as opposed to the one we just had. I get that Roman’s announcement changed things up…but when I can look at matches tonight and women’s matches are near or at the top of my list…this is what the women needed last week.
Nice segment between Brock and Braun. Regardless of what the closing segment was to be, WWE should have made Brock/Braun the last one. New guys like Braun are not going to make bigger strides if they are constantly playing second fiddle (or opening act) to some nostalgia act. I like the four guys in the main event segment, don’t get me wrong. But Braun deserved that spotlight and segment.
Not a bad closing segment, I mean, we all like seeing ‘Taker and D-X and all…but it was short and ultimately did little other than remind us that Saudi money is rich enough to get HBK out of retirement.
After the final bell:
Well, they clearly did what they had to do to hype Crown Jewel this weekend. It is sad though, that a show rife with controversy has gotten more airtime and talk in the last month than it felt like Evolution got at all even just last week.
