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WWE Raw Report: Dominik Mysterio Gets Contract, Brutal Stick Beating

It's Monday night once again, which means it's time to do the thing we do on Monday nights whether we like it or not. That's right, it's time for WWE Monday Night Raw, three hours of our lives we'll never get back. A note about this column: I realize I've been getting exceedingly wordy with these things. If you wanted a blow-by-blow account of every match, you'd just watch the damn thing. Something fewer and fewer people are doing these days. Just because I'm suffering through three grueling hours of this doesn't mean you have to. So, I'll be doing my best to keep things to bullet points.

WWE Raw 8/10/2020 Report Part 1

Raw begins with a contract signing. Samoa Joe is in the ring to make "one of the most personal of matches official for the biggest party of the Summer." One of the signees will be signing two contracts: one for the match and one to become a WWE Superstar. Joe brings out Seth Rollins first.

Tom Phillips explains that Samoa Joe is not allowed to "mix it up physically" with Rollins tonight or he'll be fired. Rollins brings Murphy with him to the signing. Joe brings out Dominik Mysterio next, calling him "the son of the greatest luchadore ever in the history of sports entertainment." Well, that's a low bar. You've got Rey, Mil Mascaras, El Dandy, and then who? Of course, if you're talking greatest in wrestling, that's another story.

Dominik brings a kendo stick to the ring with him. Rollins says it makes him look like a coward, so Joe offers to hold onto it for him. Then he tells off Rollins: "I don't see Seth freakin' Rollins. I see a man who saw the WWE Universe boo him a few times and then got all caught up in his feelings." True. Joe calls Rollins sad, especially for giving a man with no experience no choice but to fight him in a match.

Rollins disagrees. Everyone has a choice, but they make the wrong ones. Joe might make the wrong choice too. But the person who's had no choice is Rollins himself. Rollins claims he's… he's not… hehe… he's not one to play the victim card. Bwahahaha! That's like his whole gimmick! Rollins says all the fans crapped on him so he had no choice but to make sacrifices for the greater good. When will it be enough? It was enough five minutes ago, Seth.

Dominik chimes in: it will never be enough. He says Rollins uses the greater good as an excuse but he only cares about himself. Rollins tells Dominik to get on his knees and… thank him. Phew! That kind of thing might fly in Raw Underground, but regular Raw is still a PG show.

Dominik says he'll kick Seth's ass at SummerSlam. Rollins says they all know Dominik wouldn't last ten seconds in a standard one-on-one wrestling match. Rollins says he's the best wrestler of his generation. But he'll do Dominik a favor. Since Dominik is so handy with a kendo stick, Seth will let him bring it with him along with any other weapons. So a hardcore match? Or a Dolph Ziggler style one-sided hardcore match? It's not clear. They both sign the contracts.

Rollins calls for a round of applause for WWE's newest superstar, Dominik Mysterio. Rollins tells Dominik to grab a seat and watch Rollins beat up Humberto Carillo in a match for a taste of what he'll get at SummerSlam. Raw goes to commercials.

Seth Rollins vs. Humberto Carillo

The match starts when Raw comes back from break. Samoa Joe returns to the commentary booth. Dominik stays at ringside with his kendo stick. As promised, the bullet points:

• Carillo comes out strong after Rollins with lots of flippy moves.
• Dominik keeps Murphy in check with a menacing stare.
• When that doesn't work and Murphy gets up on the apron anyway, Dominik keeps him in check with the kendo stick.
• That's not enough though, because Carillo was distracted enough to get hit by the stomp and lose.

Murphy attacks Mysterio immediately after the match. He brings him in the ring where he and Seth beat him down. Murphy grabs the Kendo stick and gives it to Rollins, who gives Dominik a beating with it. He rips off Dominik's shirt and ties him up in the ropes. Rollins talks trash to Rey Mysterio through the camera in between kendo stick shots to Dominik's bare stomach. Rollins orders Murphy to go get more kendo sticks. He beats Dominik form the front while Murphy beats him from the back.

The beating goes on longer than the match between Rollins and Carillo lasted, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I may be in the minority here, but I think Raw needs to have a lot more short matches. A twenty-minute match is great and all when it means something. When it's just killing time between multiple commercial breaks, it's boring as f**k. Raw goes to commercials with alternating shots of Rollins' face and Mysterio's welt-covered back.

Well, it's been a few minutes so Tom Phillips feels the need to recap everything that just happened. We literally just watched this, Phillips, you bastard! Can we get Seth Rollins to come out here and beat Phillips with the kendo stick? Where is Retribution when you need them?!

At this point, I am pretty sure Tom Phillips isn't just evil, he's supernaturally evil, because he apparently read my thoughts and decides to punish me with a video recap of last week's entire Retribution saga. Then Andrade comes out with Angel Garza and Zelina Vega. Phillips cues up the third recap video in a row showing the aftermath of Montez Ford being poisoned during his match last week.

Zelina cuts a promo. All week she's been accused of poisoning Montez Ford. She asks what happened to innocent until proven guilty. Zelina says she had nothing to do with the poisoning. She wouldn't want to ruin her team's shot at the Raw tag team titles at SummerSlam. She had nothing to do with the poisoning, but Andrade and Garza will have everything to do with taking those titles at SummerSlam. Can someone poison me so I don't have to watch the rest of this show?

Angelo Dawkins comes out. During his entrance, the lights and music go out temporarily. Raw goes to commercials.

Angelo Dawkins vs. Andrade

The match gets started after the break. What did everybody do for five minutes while the commercials were going on? Just stand around in the ring staring at each other?

• Angelo Dawkins takes control of the match early, so Andrade slides outside. Then he waits around until he can get Dawkins to come near the ropes and trips him up. That's like some WWE 2k video game style cheating right there.
• Zelina tries to get involved in the match but Bianca Belair comes out and pulls her off the ring apron.
• Dawkins gets the win after that.

After the match, Belair punks out Garza and tosses Zelina in the ring to get a piece of her. But Zelina rolls back outside. Tom Phillips says they'll have a match after some commercials.

Bianca Belair vs. Zelina Vega – Raw Poison on a Pole Match

This match is in progress when Raw comes back from commercials. Here's the highlights, such as they are.

• Vega spents a large portion of the match hanging off Belair's body parts, trying to take her down. Vega is so small, Belair can wrestle her like the Big Show.
• Belair is pretty fired up about her husband getting poisoned, which leads to her risking disqualification by ignoring the ref.
• Vega cheats her ass off. Raking the eyes, pulling the hair, whatever it takes.
• But she blows it when she goes for a diving crossbody and gets caught in a gorilla press slam.
• Belair wins the match with the KOD.

So if it turns out that Zelina was telling the truth about not poisoning Ford… will Belair apologize? Charly Caruso interviews Belair in the ring after the match. She asks if Belair has any evidence that Zelina poisoned Ford. Belair cuts a promo, but the answer is basically: no. Angelo Dawkins steps in and says there's no way Ford will miss the biggest party of the Summer. He says they'll be causing a ruckus and bringing the red cups. Uh… just don't leave them sitting around unattended.

Tom Phillips is pretty much suffering withdrawals from going two matches without playing a single recap, so he can't wait until the match is over to show a replay of the ending of last week's Apollo Crews vs. MVP match. Hurt Business is seen chatting backstage as Raw goes to commercials. And since we've reached the end of the first hour, we'll be going to part two of this report. Click below to get there.

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