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

Raw, Source: WWE.com

The Raw brand made its last stop before WWE SummerSlam this week in Boston. Who got their hands on who before the biggest show of the summer?

Previously on WWE Raw, Roman Reigns took a desk chair to the face from Braun Strowman. In all honesty, you really don’t need to know too much more about last week’s episode. (Everything else just gets recapped tonight anyway, so you’re good.)

With that said, let’s talk about this week’s episode. First and foremost, it’s the final episode of Raw before SummerSlam hits this Sunday. That meant a bunch of big things were sure to happen to get everyone pumped for the big show.

Apparently, it also meant that a couple of SummerSlam matches would take place tonight instead. It’s almost like WWE realized they have waaaaay too much planned for even a four hour show!

To get things hyped for Sunday, Team Raw pulled no punches. WWE hyped a face to face to face to face segment featuring the four competitor’s from SummerSlam’s Universal Championship match. Putting Reigns, Strowman, Samoa Joe, and Brock Lesnar in the ring together is a heck of a way to further excitement for a big pay per view showdown.

And, as mentioned above, a few SummerSlam matches took place tonight. Most notably, the Cruiserweight Championship match was bumped up early as per Titus O’Neil request. Was Neville able to defend his championship? Or did Akira Tozawa bring some gold to Titus Worldwide?

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Please continue reading for all the results and highlights from WWE Raw for August 14.

Reunited And It Feels So Good

The show kicked off with a long video recap of the Ambrose/Rollins saga. When the show officially got under way, Dean came out and wasted no time in calling out Seth to shed some light on the situation.

As is his style, Rollins takes 5 minutes to say basically one thing – he knows that deep down Ambrose really trusts him. He holds out his hand for a fist bump. But Ambrose is still leery, especially after last week when Rollins snubbed him. So Seth says maybe it was a dumb idea, maybe they’re too different.

OR, he says, OR maybe the differences is why they worked so well together in the past. Then Seth decides maybe abandoning ship is the right call, but Ambrose prevents him from leaving the ring. The Lunatic Fringe holds out his arm for the ol’ Shield fist bump, and Rollins does the snubbing again.

https://twitter.com/WWEUniverse/status/897250099046211585

AND THEN A FIGHT BREAKS OUT. Seriously, the two former stablemates shove each other back and forth, and things broke down. Like sharks smelling blood in the water, out come Cesaro and Sheamus to attack. The Raw Tag Team Champs work together to isolate and destroy, sending Ambrose into the crowd until he saves Rollins in the ring.

When Ambrose is double-teamed, Rollins comes back to make a save of his own. With the numbers evening out a bit, the champs are sent reeling and ejected from the ring before – FINALLY – two-thirds of the Shield are officially reunited.

Kurt Angle then appears to announce a tag title match between these two teams. All I want to add in an “analysis” capacity is that when Ambrose turns on Rollins it’s going to be amazing.

Nia Jax vs. Sasha Banks

Result: Sasha Banks defeated Nia Jax via submission

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Of course, this match came about after a pair of triple threat matches last week. Those triple threat matches were necessitated by Bayley’s injury, which forced her out of her championship match at SummerSlam. With the winner facing Alexa Bliss for the Raw Women’s Championship, the champ took in all of the action from a lifeguard chair. Oh, sorry, from a “throne.”

Continuing the theme from last week, Nia looks like her new gimmick is “literally try to murder your opponent all the time.” She bulldozed Sasha as soon as the bell rang to kick things off – earning bonus points for doing the Boss taunt. And later, when Sasha went for a hurricanrana from the apron, Nia just caught her and swung her into the barricade.

Regardless of how much Nia looks like she’s trying to maim an opponent, she’s incredibly strong. The way she countered the standing camel clutch type hold from Sasha into a Samoan drop was mighty impressive. But pure strength isn’t always enough, as Sasha not only kicked out of the leg drop, but managed to use her quickness to avoid much major damage.

The closing sequence was great. Sasha showed that she is one of the smartest competitors in WWE – submission finisher not locked in enough? Lull your opponent into a false sense of security, and when she gets to the ropes you just reverse the hold. I loved it. Since Nia wasn’t worn down enough, she was able to reverse, but Sasha countered the reversal into a DDT, and locked the Banks Statement in again – on the original side – and picked up the victory.

Kurt Makes a Miz-Take

Angle attempts to discuss SummerSlam with the Hardy Boyz, but is interrupted by The Miztourage. The Miz himself makes it known that last week’s match between Jason Jordan and Curtis Axel – planned for tonight – wouldn’t happen, and Miz would take Jordan on himself. Before much more could be said, Angle was pulled away to deal with an issue between Finn Balor and Bray Wyatt – much to Miz’s chagrin.

Turns out the big issue was just Balor and Wyatt brawling backstage. (The officials couldn’t handle this one without the GM?) Since both men were unwilling to wait until SummerSlam, Angle proclaimed SummerSlam would come early, and the match would happen tonight.

Huh? Weird.

Elias Drifts Back To The Lower Midcard

Well, I for one feel a little bad for Elias

Samson

. First, he loses his last name, although I guess it makes him more alluring. Like Cher, or Madonna, or Charo. But now he’s drifted from feuding with the likes of Dean Ambrose and Finn Balor to, uh, R-Truth? Is it a battle for terrible music?

Anyway, Elias gives perhaps his best musical performance to date. The best thing about the arts is when they’re filled with truths. And let me tell you, as a native New Yorker, there was nothing but truth in Elias’s lyrics this evening. Boston is a terrible place. Did you know you can’t even get a subway after like 11pm there? What kind of major city just shuts down because it’s late? Boo. (Clearly, I’m joking here.) (Mostly.)

But rather than let the man speak his piece, R-Truth has to return from golden beatdowns to interrupt the man mid song. Not cool, bro. Thankfully, Elias isn’t too keen on sharing the spotlight, so he makes short work of the former NWA World Heavyweight Champion.

I’m glad Elias hasn’t fully abandoned the “drifter” aspect of his NXT character. It may have been a train wreck down there, but on Raw it made sense (which is probably why it was dropped so quickly). His rolling neckbreaker finish is now known as Drift Away – fitting, since the WWE Universe is so keen on chanting that anyway when Elias is in the ring.

Despite All This Rage…

Once all the starts and stops from nuclear reactions were done, Cass actually delivered a pretty good promo here. I know, I was kind of surprised, too!

Seriously, though, Cass has clearly put in a lot of work on the mic to prove that maybe he really didn’t need Enzo after all. It’s not the best in the world, but Cass can definitely string together coherent thoughts. And he’s got some pretty good points – Enzo needs muscle behind him, Big Show needs someone to keep him relevant, and so on.

Of course, the whole thing is shadowed by the stupid shark cage in the middle of the ring. Man, you release one toy set with a shark cage like 10 months ago, and now you gotta spam the real life thing over and over. In the past several months, WWE has sent Paul Ellering and Chris Jericho up in the air. On Sunday, we do it again. It’s a lousy gimmick, because it’s the most predictable thing in the world, and it never changes the trope.

Anyway, Enzo comes out for a rebuttal, he brings out Big Show for an attack, and Cass counters with Gallows and Anderson in an ambush. The trio take out both Enzo and Big Show, potentially seriously injuring the latter’s hand. Well, that’s one way to avoid a knockout punch, I guess.

Later in the evening, we find out that WWE’s medical staff can diagnose a broken hand without waiting for X-ray results. Well, the Z-Pak thing makes a bit more sense, I guess. Show tells Enzo he’s going to compete at SummerSlam regardless, so there’s that.

WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match

Akira Tozawa (w/ Titus O’Neil) vs. Neville (c)

Result: Akira Tozawa defeated Neville via pinfall to become the new WWE Cruiserweight Champion

Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

In the first of two SummerSlam matches getting bumped to what’s basically the pre-pre-show, the Cruiserweight Championship was on the line. It’s a shame, because these guys had a real chance to kill it on a huge stage this Sunday. I guess we know where the cruiserweight division sits in the pecking order, huh?

That said, wow, was this good or what? At the moment, no one in WWE has shown the same kind of dominance over a “division” like Neville has in recent months. But Tozawa has seemed like a man possessed for a while now, too. You knew a “real” match between these two was going to deliver, and of course it did, and the fact that it was bumped from a pay per view is really upsetting.

Everything about this was great. The comeback Tozawa needed after Neville took charge during the commercial break. The crisp, clean, and vicious looking pair of suicide dives from Tozawa – Ambrose and Rollins should never do a tope suicida again. The attempts to hit the senton, but Neville’s resilience and craftiness. Tozawa being smart enough to roll with the Rings of Saturn to avoid getting locked in. The missed Red Arrow leading to the finish. It was all wonderful.

While it’s a shame to see Neville’s terrific title reign come to an end, it’s great to see Tozawa get a chance to prove himself as champion. The celebration with Titus Worldwide was also pretty great to see – but who would have thought Akira Tozawa would hold WWE gold before Apollo Crews?

#GiveEmmaAChance

Wait, so now Emma started the Women’s Revolution? I’m so confused. Either way, Mickie James doesn’t take too kindly to a millennial being on her phone complaining all the time, so she challenges Emma to a match on Raw.

Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt

Result: Bray Wyatt defeated Finn Balor via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

This is the second consecutive match to be moved up from SummerSlam to the kickoff show kickoff. With everyone (myself included) basically assuming that Balor would break out the war paint at SummerSlam, perhaps this was a way to really avoid that? Otherwise, aside from time constraints I can’t think of why this match would get bumped.

Oh, maybe it’s because Wyatt has been a creative black hole since dropping the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. He had a tremendously poor “House of Horrors” match against Randy Orton, and a lousy feud with Seth Rollins. The build to the Balor match was “vintage Wyatt” – spooky stuff, cryptic promos, and a lack of direction.

So what happens? A 100% squeaky clean victory for Wyatt with a Sister Abigail. I guess the match was okay, but there was literally nothing special about it one way or the other. Nothing so good it made you perk up, and nothing so bad it made you feel dumb for watching. It was just there, like most Wyatt matches of late.

After the match, things got weird. You ever see the movie Carrie? It was kind of like the end of that, but it definitely wasn’t blood, no sir. It was a “thick, viscous, acidic liquid of some sort” as per Michael Cole. So there. Now, why Bray Wyatt felt the need to dump not-blood on top of Finn Balor is unknown. But I do know that I feel bad for whoever had to go in the ring after that and roll around in viscous acidic stains.

Shoulda broke out the war paint, Finn. Even if it was just an episode of Raw.

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.

Source: WWE.com

The Miz (w/ Maryse, Bo Dallas, & Curtis Axel) vs. Jason Jordan

Result: Jason Jordan defeated The Miz via disqualification

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

For what it was while it lasted, the singles match between Jordan and Miz was perfectly fine. But let’s be honest, there was no way this match was going to end cleanly. Jordan was throwing Miz around the ring until Dallas and Axel made the save, as one would assume would be the case.

Something else that was easy to predict, based on earlier events in the show: The Hardy Boyz made the save for Jordan to even the odds. Last but not least in terms of predictable events, once six guys were in the ring in very identifiable groups of three, an “impromptu” six man tag would kick off.

Jason Jordan & The Hardy Boyz (Matt & Jeff) vs. The Miztourage (The Miz, Bo Dallas, & Curtis Axel)

Result: Jason Jordan & The Hardy Boyz defeated The Miztourage via pinfall

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

And that’s exactly what happened for the de facto main event of this week’s Raw.

All things considered, it was your standard six man tag fare. Both Jordan and Matt (but especially Matt) played face in peril to a T. The Miztourage did enough to seem like a united front, more so than the “random” trio opposite the ring.

The finishing sequence was great, starting with the near perfect Whisper in the Wind from Jeff. Although, someone should probably tell Bo Dallas that the Twist of Fate is more like the RKO than the Stunner – dude is going to break his neck taking that move if he keeps doing what he did tonight.

Source: WWE.com

Universal Championship Showdown

Just want to get this out of the way off the bat: We’re doing a face to face to face to face segment in the ring, yet not one of these four competitors is really a face. Reigns is the closest thing to one, but he’s drifting more towards the heel side of tweener as of late.

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Anyway, security surrounded the ring as the worst Chekhov’s Gun in recent WWE history. Seriously, security around the ring at this point should inspire the same visions as a contract signing segment. It just means someone is going to send things into chaos.

Paul Heyman talks for a while, which is good as per usual. One by one, the challengers enter the ring, stating their claim. Well, except for Reigns, who says zero words and just speared Joe half to death. Strowman takes out Reigns, which leaves the most intriguing potential matchup in the ring: Braun vs. Lesnar.

Just listening to the crowd reaction, it seems that quite a few people would like to see this one. (I know I would.) Sadly, the Keystone Kops Security Force enter the ring to hold the monsters back. It’s not effective.

Once security has been dispatched, Kurt Angle sends out the locker room to keep Lesnar and Strowman separated. It’s a little more effective, but still not very effective. Lesnar leaps half the ring to get to Braun as the show fades to black, and now I need to see a one on one match between Lesnar and Strowman.

Now that’s how you build to a main event.

Next: 5 Reasons Braun Strowman Should Win at WWE SummerSlam

What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE Raw?