WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for August 14

Mickie James vs. Emma

Result: Mickie James defeated Emma via pinfall

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

Speaking of matches that were just sort of there, Mickie James vs. Emma was made official at some point. I think a combination of a great Cruiserweight Championship match, a weird blood thing with Balor and Wyatt, and Emma and James being woefully underutilized before the past two weeks killed the crowd for this one.

Again, it wasn’t a particularly bad match, nor a particularly great match. It was a little methodical in the pacing, but I wouldn’t say slow. Nothing was overly sloppy, and nothing seemed super crisp and clean either. It was, as before, just sort of there.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, wrestling on a wrestling show is going to be average. Not everything has to fall into the extreme ends of a range. It’s the classic bell curve – the excellent and the terrible are the extremes, but most stuff falls somewhere in the middle. In fact, the vast majority of examples fall in the middle. I think a lot of times, we fans are guilty of hyperbolizing everything so it fits into one of two categories: “IT WAS AWESOME” or “IT SUCKED.” Nothing else exists.

Well, there’s a lot in between awesome matches and real stinkers. Emma and Mickie James were smack dab in the middle. And to be honest, I’d rather have mediocre, nondescript wrestling than Stephanie McMahon promos.

Finn Is Making A Mess Backstage

Seriously, it’s a good thing that blood isn’t really blood, because there’s probably a billion OSHA violations happening there if it were blood. Balor comes out of Kurt Angle’s office and reveals tonight was a giant waste of time because we’re still doing the same exact match at SummerSlam after all. But Balor will suit up as The Demon on Sunday, so that’s a plus.