WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for August 28

Raw, Source: WWE.com

John Cena and Roman Reigns made their upcoming match at No Mercy official. Plus, the Raw Women’s Championship was on the line in a SummerSlam rematch.

Previously on WWE Raw, John Cena made his triumphant return to the flagship show. You may not have noticed it with beach ball mania taking center stage for SummerSlam weekend. But the 16-time world champ is taking up residence on Monday nights for the foreseeable future.

In more HOSS based news, Braun Strowman staked his claim for the Universal Championship. Brock Lesnar was fortunate enough to escape SummerSlam with the title. But Braun laid the champ out to open last week’s Raw. Before the night was over, the two were booked in a title match at No Mercy.

This week, another match for No Mercy became official. Cena stated his time on Raw is to challenge Roman Reigns. The two shared words last week, but won a tag team match as partners in the main event – though not without a misstep and some dissension. So of course, they’ll settle their differences at No Mercy.

In addition, Alexa Bliss cashed in her rematch for the Raw Women’s Championship this week. She lost the title at SummerSlam to Sasha Banks, but refused to take on The Boss last week. Instead, it was this week that Sasha looked to break her curse of never successfully defending the championship. Was she successful this time?

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Please continue reading for all the results and highlights for WWE Raw for August 28.

We’re A Couple of Miz-fits

First things first, kudos to WWE for immediately addressing the catastrophic flooding in Houston. For a company that can be incredibly tone deaf at times, this was handled pretty much perfectly. Best wishes to Booker T and his family, and everyone in the Houston area.

Anyway, Miz and company are already in the ring, and before the Intercontinental Champ can get a single word out, here comes GM Kurt Angle. Apparently, the story is that Miz is upset that the IC Title is an afterthought, so Angle is giving Miz a title defense next week. His opponent? Whoever wins the 15 man battle royal starting now!

I love battle royals, even if sometimes it feels like a “well, we have nothing going on with a whoooooole bunch of people on the roster, so let’s put them all out there at once” situation. But with the Hardy Boyz, Finn Balor, and King Kong Bundy* in the ring, how could it disappoint?

Everything is set up for a Jason Jordan victory here. He’s the one in the midst of a feud with The Miz. And he’s got the “Kurt Angle is my dad” storyline in his favor, too. Plus, he got the all important last entrance before the opening bell.

(* – I’m being told this was not King Kong Bundy, but actually a clean-shaven Big Show. My apologies.)

Battle Royal, Winner is Number Once Contender for Intercontinental Championship

Result: Jeff Hardy wins by eliminating Jason Jordan

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

STOP THE PRESSES: We’re finally getting another Balor Club/Bullet Club tease! As is the usual for battles royal, it takes multiple competitors to eliminate the big guy – Big Show, tonight. Gallows and Anderson were working on it, but needed a helping hand from their good brother Finn. It looked like we were going to see a Too Sweetski before Elias attacked his old nemesis Balor.

https://twitter.com/totaldivaseps/status/902324382701367296

If I had to guess, this was to gauge the crowd reaction to teaming Balor and his old buddies. Memphis isn’t like a Brooklyn or Chicago – the crowd is usually not quite a “bizarro world,” so you can get a good idea of the true response. If anyone from WWE is reading this – DO IT. DO IT NOW.

The battle royal as a whole was the usual WWE battle royal. Strange alliances, guys working together one second and eliminating each other the next, and the sowing of seeds for future feuds. I’m all in for Gallows and Anderson going up against the Hardys, especially if Balor is caught in the middle. Too bad Bray Wyatt is going to ruin that, at least for the time being.

Shockingly, Jeff Hardy stole a victory in this one. Jordan was rolling after Balor was eliminated by Wyatt, eliminating Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel simultaneously before dumping Elias to be one of the final two. But Brother Nero was the ultimate opportunist to get a title shot against The Miz.

You know what? I like it. It’s something different, and if The Revival being out for a while messed up plans for the Hardys, why not do something different? Hardy may be a good placeholder feud until Jordan is more ready, as well.

Enzo Amore vs. Noam Dar

Result: Enzo Amore defeated Noam Dar via pinfall

Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

It’s official, ladies and gentlemen: Enzo has officially worn out his welcome for me. It’s the epitome of awful human behavior to say that a legit injury is “what he deserved.” But here’s Enzo saying Cass deserved tearing his ACL and missing at least nine months or so, because, uh, he picked on Enzo? Seriously? (Yes, legit injuries have been written into stories before. But it’s always been “I injured you,” not “You absolutely deserved landing funny in a freak accident.”)

Anyway, Enzo the Giant “Killer” is moving to 205 Live, because why not? Tonight he debuts in the Cruiserweight Division against Noam Dar, who clearly wants nothing to do with the Smacktalker Skywalker. You and me both, Noam.

Seriously, Dar looked like he was going through the motions in this one. I guess the fact that he had to make Enzo look good was just too much to ask of him. Enzo is a lot of things, but “terrific technical wrestler who can carry a match on his own” is not one of them. Eventually, Enzo wins the match by stealing Sole Food from Chuck Taylor – and not even hitting it well!

After the match, Charly Caruso questions Neville about Enzo. The King – rightfully – points out that if Enzo is his next challenger, then Neville will be Cruiserweight Champion forever. So I’m looking forward to Enzo winning the title on the No Mercy Kickoff Show.

Blues? Nope, It’s Brock-abilly

There are days where I want to start a Kickstarter campaign just to raise money to pay Paul Heyman to record like a dozen children’s books on tape. Heyman could make Green Eggs & Ham sound like it was the height of Shakespeare. I mean, Heyman literally tells the same story every time he’s on Raw: Brock had a challenger, and he had a tough go, but he’s The Beast so he persevered. That’s it.

But the way he gets that story across is always tailor-made for the situation. There’s enough tweaks each time you hear it that you don’t get sick of it, or really think of it as the same thing. Listening to Heyman speak is like seeing John Coltrane in his prime – every time you heard “Giant Steps” it was a brand new performance, even though it was the same melody, same harmony, same structure, same everything.

The story this time is that Braun Strowman is the toughest challenger in WWE for Lesnar. (Already very similar to the Great Balls of Fire build with Samoa Joe.) Heyman bends over backwards putting Strowman over, and sounds 100% believable while doing it. Even Brock begrudgingly acknowledges how much punishment Strowman dished out at SummerSlam, and on Raw the next night.

But the pivot into “Brock is The Beast, and he will overcome” is so seamless, that it takes Brock grabbing the mic to punctuate things as only he can – with a catchprase and borderline profanity – to really send things home. Usually, the less Brock says, the better. But lately, he’s been dropping these random interjections, and they’re perfect. We’re still four weeks away from No Mercy, but I am super hyped for this Universal Championship match.

Seth Rollins (w/ Dean Ambrose) vs. Cesaro (w/ Sheamus)

Result: Cesaro defeated Seth Rollins via pinfall

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Whoever decided it was a good idea to have Rollins come out before a commercial, then come back from commercial with a five minute video package before Cesaro entered needs to seriously question their pacing. I’m shocked there wasn’t a commercial sooner into this match, but how long do you need your tag champs to chill in the ring doing nothing?

Thankfully, Rollins and Cesaro are incredibly talented, and once the match (finally) got going, it was pretty good. The only disappointing thing about this is knowing that The Bar will cash in their rematch at No Mercy, which means four weeks of singles matches to build to it. This is where layered storylines would be hugely beneficial to Raw. Why not set up another team winning a series of matches from last week to, like, next week, and challenge the champs at No Mercy instead? Do the SummerSlam rematch tonight, or even next week, and move both teams on.

But this is how things are done – all feuds last at least 2-3 cycles. So we get a decent match, even if there’s both 1) a distraction finish, and 2) a champion taking a non-title loss. At least it was a tag champ losing a singles match, but still.

After Cesaro won with a brutal uppercut, Sheamus challenged Ambrose to a match of his own. I guess we’re condensing the four week build into one night? Dean accepts, and we roll on…

Dean Ambrose (w/ Seth Rollins) vs. Sheamus (w/ Cesaro)

Result: Dean Ambrose defeated Sheamus via pinfall

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Here’s the flawed logic with doing these two matches back to back. For all intents and purposes, thirty consecutive minutes or so were devoted to a pair of singles matches. Usually, that’s great. But if the two matches were literally halves of a larger tag team match, why not just do the tag team match? Instead of two pretty good 15-ish minute singles matches, just do one absolute banger of a tag match.

Yes, it would be terrible to have the dreaded multiple commercial break syndrome hitting the match. But doing a rematch for the Raw Tag Team Championship tonight would open up so many more avenues for the tag division. At that point, who cares how many commercial breaks split up the match?

Up until the finish, believe it or not this was the better of the two matches. But the finish killed it, because the babyface champs have to cheat to win? Get outta here. A pair of former world champs should be more than capable of fighting fairly, but noooooope.

Now that we’ve done pretty much the entire second cycle for these teams, I’m honestly intrigued to see how the rest of this rematch build goes. Are they just going to repeat everything again? Promo wars? Belt stealing? There’s so many possibilities!

Some Say She Started the Emmalution

The end game for this Emma storyline is going to be Paige coming back, right? We all know Paige is the one who started the Diva’s Revolution, as some say.

Mickie James vs. Emma

Result: Emma defeated Mickie James via pinfall

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

In what has to be a first, the stipulation for this match is over what hashtag the loser has to tweet or not tweet. I wish I was making that up. Hey, did I mention that today was the day the first four episodes of the Mae Young Classic dropped on the WWE Network? I mean, it’s such a momentous day for women wrestlers everywhere, showcasing such great talent. Anyway, back to the hashtag match.

There’s literally nothing to review here, since the match was about two minutes. Emma – who now has new, terrible music for her entrance, yet the same poses in time with the old music – picked up a squeaky clean victory, and now Mickie James has to send some kind of tweet. Following the match, Emma repeats “I started the Women’s Revolution” over and over on the mic as she heads to the locker room. Um, okay.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the inevitable DVD titled “How One Earth Did We Screw Emma Up This Badly?” (working title) For everything she did so well in NXT – during two separate stints at Full Sail – just about nothing has gone right for her on the main roster. Her fun loving initial character was immediately turned into Santino’s girlfriend, complete with pink cobra sleeve. After her retool to “Evil Emma,” she got hurt. She was billed to return as Emmalina, with delay after delay – until she came out and said noooooooope. Now this?

I’m very curious to see if the creative team can dig out of this without yet another trip to retool in NXT. Emma is tremendously talented, but any fans who don’t watch NXT wouldn’t know it. Hopefully things work out in the long run for her.

Cena vs. Reigns – Once In A Lifetime Until We Do It Again And Again

Right off the bat, gotta love WWE openly admitting that this match is “WrestleMania worthy,” but they’re doing it at No Mercy anyway. Translation: If we put this on WrestleMania, it’ll just be three times as many people live in the arena crapping all over it.

Strangely, almost immediately, Cena basically goes off the rails. We kid about pulling the curtain back, and kayfabe being dead. But John Cena just took the curtain and doused it in gasoline before throwing a match at it. “Roman has always been protected”? “I’m the guy there’s no protection from”? Are you kidding me?!?!

And that’s not even the best part! Cena goes for the kill shot when he calls Roman a “cheap, corporately-created John Cena bootleg.” I’m genuinely surprised that Angle didn’t leave the ring to get some salve for that burn. Even Jerry Lawler seemed shocked by this, clearly forgetting to hit his cough button when he expressed shock at what was being said. Throw in Cena knocking down the Undertaker, and things are pure chaos.

Roman comes back swinging, and finally shows some real life emotion on the stick. Cleary, everyone has worked themselves into a shoot (brother), and I am looking forward to a bloodbath at No Mercy. This was the most awkward, awful, terrible, terrific, wonderful, greatest segment in recent memory. I swear Roman looked like he was near tears at one point.

And then we get Gallows and Anderson? For a tag match? Against two guys who just fired kill shot after kill shot at each other? Sure, why not?

Source: WWE.com

John Cena & Roman Reigns vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson

Result: John Cena & Roman Reigns defeated Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

First off, this match is already completely unfair. Gallows and Anderson both competed in the battle royal earlier in the night, and were clearly not at 100%. Reigns and Cena just took out their frustration on clearly fatigued opponents. Can’t believe the Good Brothers got treated like that.

Anyway, half the match took place during the commercial, so we got a bunch of John Cena playing face in peril – which we all know is laughable. When Reigns finally gets the hot tag, the crowd is still pretty firmly against him, which is kind of cruel – dude just had his rear end handed to him, and it’s not like he asked to be the chosen one of the company, you know?

Reigns does his usual, and Cena lends a helping hand by hitting an AA to open a clear path for Roman’s spear, and the unlikely bedfellows pick up another W in tag action. Honestly, the fact that neither guy ripped the other one’s head off is admirable.

Question, though: Did it have to be Gallows and Anderson as the sacrificial lambs here? Former IWGP Tag Team Champs, legit one of the best tag teams in the world (up until 2016, at least) – reduced to enhancement talent for multi-time world champs beefing with each other? Truly disappointing.

Source: WWE.com

Elias: Walking in Memphis

In a perfect cool down segment after the fire that Cena and Reigns brought, Elias debuts a new song. But first, he’s just jamming. It’s great. Elias is great. And I love that literally the most common blues riff you can play on a guitar is “a keeper.”

Now, I’ve never been to Memphis, so I can’t speak to the authenticity of Elias’s new tune. But he seems to be a man of the world, and most of his observations are correct, so you would think one would have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But Jerry Lawler takes offense to his hometown being denigrated – ah, now I see why he was Booker T’s replacement instead of literally anyone else. (Hey, wasn’t David Otunga supposed to be back after like 6 weeks or something? It’s been almost 5 months.)

In a surprise of epic proportions, “Impressive” Pelvis Wesley makes his Raw debut. The Southpaw Regional Wrestling superstar hasn’t been seen much since the unfortunate cancellation of Lethal Leap Year back in 1987. He looks to be in great shape after a 30 year layoff.

Sadly, young and hungry will nearly always have the edge over a competitor from another era. Elias initially placated Wesley, but then attacked him and made short work of him. In fact, being hit with the Drift Away neckbreaker knocked Wesley out of his wig – he kind of looked like Heath Slater, but that can’t be right.

Did Angle Make A Miz-take?

The best thing about The Miz is his ability to make getting what he wants seem like a bad thing. “I want the Intercontinental Title to have the prestige it deserves!” Okay, here’s a match for you. “ONE MATCH ISN’T ENOUGH! AND DID JEFF HARDY EARN A MATCH? NO!”

Never change, Miz. Never change.

Source: WWE.com

Raw Women’s Championship Match

Sasha Banks (c) vs. Alexa Bliss

Result: Alexa Bliss defeated Sasha Banks via pinfall to become the new Raw Women’s Champion

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

The first portion of the match was perfectly paced. As the announcers – and the competitors themselves – have told us all night, Sasha has never successfully defended the Raw Women’s Championship. Her plan: keep things slow and methodical, and wear down Alexa’s limbs. Obviously, she’s aiming to make the Banks Statement more devastating.

But during the commercial, Bliss took over with some vicious tackles into the barricade and LED board on the apron. Bliss’s gameplan is solid, too – Sasha has well documented neck and back injuries in her past, so that’s her focus. When was the last time you saw Alexa Bliss use a bow and arrow submission hold? Anything that works the back was fair game.

Then things got a little scrappy and a lot stiff. Sasha looked like she spiked Alexa a bit on her sunset flip, and in retaliation Bliss hit a nasty looking forearm to the jaw. Like, we’re talking Jinder Mahal on Finn Balor back in April kind of forearm. As if that wasn’t enough, Alexa Bliss pulling out a Yoshi Tonic? WHAT IS HAPPENING ON RAW THIS WEEK?

Sasha looked like she was en route to breaking the curse, locking in the Banks Statement, but Alexa reversed it into a pin attempt. Sasha released the hold to kick out, but couldn’t lock it in again. Bliss hit the DDT for a – somewhat surprising – victory to regain the title in the best match of the night by far.

After the match, Nia Jax came out to apparently celebrate with her friend Alexa, but after taking out Sasha, Nia took out Alexa. After posing with the title belt, Nia left, but clearly we’re headed towards Nia vs. Alexa at No Mercy.

Next: WWE No Mercy 2017 Match Card Predictions

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