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WWE Raw – Lana Proves to be the Best Wrestler on Raw or Smackdown

Published Tue, 13 Oct 2020 10:35:45 -0500

In part two of Bleeding Cool's WWE Raw report, Ricochet finally does something right, the announce table jobs to Lana, and the WWE Draft Night 2 continues. Welcome to Bleeding Cool's WWE Raw report. We watch WWE, so you don't have to! And in the case of Raw, it's a real sacrifice. You're welcome.

The official logo for WWE Monday Night Raw. Credit: WWE.

WWE Raw Report for October 12th, 2020 Part 4

Raw plays a video replay of Retribution's attack on Hurt Business last week, and Mustafa Ali revealing himself to be their leader. His Retribution name is Nut Sweat. I don't know if that's really his Retribution name, but I'm guessing it is. Cedric Alexander is in the ring for a match with Ricochet. Hurt Business is there too. Ricochet comes out.

Cedric Alexander vs. Ricochet

If Ricochet wins this match, Hurt Business will leave him alone from now on. If Cedric wins, Ricochet has to join Hurt Business.
Seeing these guys wrestle, you can almost forget about the months of WWE totally ruining them with crappy booking. Almost.
The match is athletic, but it's just killing time until the finish.
MVP tosses Cedric, a steel chair while the ref is knocked out. But Ricochet catches it. Hurt Business surrounds the ring as Ricochet decides whether to hit Cedric with it. The ref is getting up. Ricochet slams the chair on the ground, tosses it to Cedric and falls on the mat like he got hit. The ref disqualifies Cedric and Ricochet wins. I'm pretty sure we just saw this finish very recently, but I can't remember where because WWE is just a nonstop blur of

Hurt Business is pissed as Raw takes a commercial break. AJ Styles, The New Day, and the winner of the battle royal tonight will be on Raw Talk tonight. There will also be more draft picks, which I guess means I have to watch it. Can't I ever sleep, WWE?!

Raw shows a replay of Braun Strowman and Keith Lee brawling last week, ending with a very soft tackle off the stage into a crash pad. They'll face each other next week in the Raw Season Premiere, which is a thing Raw has now apparently. Stephanie McMahon is on the stage to do the last round of draft picks on Raw. Raw picks Titus O'Neil. Smackdown picks Carmella. Raw picks Peyton Royce. Aleister Black is drafted by Smackdown. Raw drafts Akira Tozawa.

Asuka heads out to join commentary for the battle royal. Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler come out as Raw takes a commercial break. After the break, all the rest of the women are in the ring. Nia Jax has a mic. She promises not to injure anyone. Also, she or Shayna are definitely winning the match, so she suggests the other girls jump over the top rope and eliminate themselves.

Dual-Brand Women's Battle Royal – Raw Championship Shot on the Line

This is a dual-brand match because A) there aren't enough women on one brand or the other for a large enough battle royal and B) figuring out who should be in it based on what brand they'll end up on after the draft would require advance planning, which WWE doesn't do.
Asuka on commentary is always a treat. Yes, she speaks in Japanese, and I don't understand anything she says because I don't speak Japanese, but she's still so much better than Phillips, Saxton, and Joe.
Jax eliminates Tamina first.
Jax eliminates Billie Kay.
Nia and Shayna eliminate Dana Brooke and Mandy Rose at the same time.
At this point, the remaining women team up on Jax. They get her halfway over the rope, and Shayna decides to help them push her all the way over.
Jax, irate, pulls Lana out through the ropes (not over) and gives her a Samoan drop through the table, which finally breaks after no-selling all night. What did I tell you? The announce table only sells for Lana.
The camera cuts to backstage where Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton are beating the crap out of each other because this random brawl is more important than who the next challenger for Asuka will be, apparently.
After a commercial break, It's Lacey Evans, Nikki Cross, Natalya, Bianca Belair, Liv Morgan, Ruby Riott, and Shayna Baszler left in the ring.
Lacey eliminates Nikki Cross.
Belair eliminates Baszler, with ease mind you. That's a big deal for Belair's push. But sadly, Riott Squad team up to eliminate Belair.
Natalya, Lacey Evans, Liv Morgan, and Ruby Riott are the final four. They square off in teams, and Lacey and Natalya eliminate Riott Squad in sync.
Out of all the women in the ring, I would have wanted to see face Asuka; these are the last two.
Asuka is seen watching the match backstage on a monitor for some reason, even though she was just on commentary before the last commercial break. It isn't explained why she's not out there anymore. Maybe commentary was too interesting.
Natalya and Lacey do a few near-eliminations on the apron before Natalya catches a hurricanrana attempt by Lacey and swings her into the ring post, eliminating her.
But Lana shows up from behind Natalya and eliminates her, winning the match and the title shot.

Okay, forget what I said about Natalya and Lacey. Lana is the absolute last person I want to see challenge Asuka. That brawl between Orton and McIntyre spills out to the ringside area. A bunch of officials come out to break it up. Raw ends with them pulled apart.

No Raw Underground (does Shane have COVID?). No Retribution. There were some draft picks that, I guess, qualify as interesting, but nothing that lives up to the New Day breakup from Smackdown. All of the wrestling was tedious except for the battle royal. The battle royal wasn't tedious purely for the novelty of a battle royal. I get that it's a transitional show as the rosters are changing next week, but I'm not accepting that as an excuse because WWE's only job right now is to create television that isn't boring. They don't have to worry about house shows. There's no good reason why Raw has to be so boring so often, especially when Smackdown, ostensibly produced by the same creative team, is reliably so much better. Sadly, a roster change isn't going to fix that. Raw has to be the most bloated show on television. It's time to go back to two hours, or the ratings are gonna continue to drop. It's just unwatchable, and I'm literally being paid to watch it!

Er… which reminds me. Thanks for reading Bleeding Cool's WWE Raw report. Come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you what happened on Impact, and I promise I'll enjoy it more than this.

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