Last night’s episode of Raw took place in Memphis, Tennessee and featured a total of nine matches. Dean Ambrose vs. Kane and John Cena vs. Randy Orton was announced at the start of the show and the Miz put his Intercontinental Championship on the line in a Night of Champions rematch against Dolph Ziggler.
Both John Cena and Dean Ambrose were the center of attention throughout Raw. After both men exchanged some heated words with one another, cooler heads prevailed as they tried their best to hunt down the man who screwed both of them over – Seth Rollins.
After an outstanding Night of Champions PPV, could WWE roll into Bluff City and finally produce a high-quality show? Here are my overall highs, lows and random thoughts of the 9/22/2014 edition of Monday Night Raw:
BEST MATCH: The Intercontinental Championship rematch between Dolph Ziggler and the Miz was the Best Match of the night. Despite a noticeable botch, it’s clear to see that the Ohio natives have great chemistry with one another and Ziggler’s work-rate, along with his selling, is really helping Miz look like a legitimate threat to virtually everybody on the WWE roster. I love Miz’s gimmick and the stuff with Damien Sandow is hilarious, so it’s refreshing to see Miz continue to improve inside the squared circle. The match told a logical story and the finish was well executed – which was Ziggler getting the win by stealing the title back in the exact same fashion Miz did at Night of Champions (grabbing the tights). I’m not a fan of so many title changes, but the match was superb.
WORST MATCH: I’m going to make this short and sweet by saying that Adam Rose & the Bunny vs. Heath Slater & Titus O’Neil was probably one of the stupidest things I have ever seen on WWE TV. For some reason, I felt like this was more stupid and pointless than that one time Vince McMahon pulled stuff out of Jim Ross’ ass for an hour. I think WWE has just given up when it comes to comedy…and they’re starting to insult our intelligence.
BEST PROMO: Less than 24 hours after retaining the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, neither Brock Lesnar nor Paul Heyman showed up on Raw. I understand the Lesnar situation and how he’s bound by limited dates, but I believe it is vital for Heyman to at least show his face and cut a promo in order to keep the biggest, most important storyline in WWE going. Paul Heyman holds the record for winning the most “Best Promo” awards in this Raw Reaction piece, and without the Beast’s advocate, none other than Dean Ambrose picked up the slack by cutting an entertaining promo, which of course started off the show. Seeing Ambrose and Cena have tension inside the ring made sense and was fun to watch. It was also pretty cool to see that they were nonchalantly working together to get rid of the cancer in WWE – Seth Rollins.
MOST SHOCKING MOMENT: Dolph Ziggler winning the Intercontinental Championship back from the Miz was the Most Shocking Moment of the night. Dean Ambrose hiding inside the box and sneak-attacking Seth Rollins, Randy Orton and Corporate Kane was awesome to watch, but come on, we all knew Ambrose was in there! I was very surprised to see Ziggler beat the Miz so soon after losing the title, therefore, I believe it was the Most Shocking Moment of the night.
