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WWE Raw Review 8/30/2021: Bad But Less Bad Than Usual Bad
Who's willing to subscribe to the theory that Vince McMahon kicked the bucket months ago and Bruce Pritchard has been Weekend-at-Bernies-ing him to control WWE and execute his fantasy booking unhindered? Maybe you'll be more convinced after reading about what happened on WWE Raw this week. But first, a word from our sponsors…
Chad? Is that you?
WWE Raw Review 8/30/2021
Damian Priest opened Raw with a very efficient promo, both issuing an open challenge for his United States Championship while simultaneously calling out Bobby Lashley for not accepting challenges for his WWE Championship. This kind of efficiency is too much for WWE, so everything went off the rails, with Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, Bobby Lashley, MVP, Riddle, Orton, Adam Pearce, and Sonya Deville all coming out. The end result of all of this is that they booked half the show on the spot. What would WWE do if the wrestlers didn't start a bunch of fights at the start of Raw every week? The show would be 30 minutes.
Rhea Ripley beat Shayna Baszler in a match that existed mostly for Nikki Ash and Nia Jax to spar on commentary. The match itself was decent but ended in a distraction finish since it was an afterthought.
The Viking Raiders beat Jinder Mahal and Veer… and nobody cared.
Damian Priest successfully defended his United States Championship against Drew McIntyre and Sheamus in a triple threat match that was, probably, the match of the night. Drew McIntyre showed respect to Priest afterward like a good babyface.
More shenanigans with Reggie, Akira Tozawa, and R-Truth in a park. Even R-Truth got bored midway through and peaced out on the segment.
Eva Marie and Doudrop were supposed to have a match, but Doudrop sat on her before the match and so it never happened. No, seriously.
Eyes Wide Kross came out and squashed Humberto Carrillo. Yeah. You give it to him, daddy. Tick tock.
Shocking everyone in the building, Nia Jax and Charlotte Flair had a match and nobody was horribly injured. Not for lack of trying, though. Jax won with a powerbomb, because nothing says "both the champion and the challenger at the PPV suck" like having the challenger beat the champ in non-title matches for weeks leading up to it only to have her ultimate lose when it counts.
The Miz was supposed to face Omos, but John Morrison face him instead. Despite Morrison's considerable talents as a jobber, the match still sucked. Omos won.
AJ Styles then tapped out Xavier Woods in a singles match.
In the other match spinning out of the opening segment of WWE Raw, RKBro beat MVP and Bobby Lashley in a tag team match, with Riddle getting the pin on MVP to retain the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships. Randy Orton RKOed Lashley after the match to end the show. Good match, and I love RKBro, but it's unfortunate the tag team titles are being used as a prop in the world title feud.
Nothing about the booking of Raw this week was great. However, the main event and the triple threat were both decent matches if you're into that sort of thing. Of course, Jax vs. Flair was bad enough to cancel out both of those. Still, nothing particularly egregious happened tonight, so I'm gonna call that an above-average WWE Raw. Which is still bad, just good for Raw.