WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for September 4

WWE Raw (Source: WWE.com via Twitter)

No Deep Tracks Tonight

Clearly, WWE is sticking to what worked last week. There’s not much different tonight from last week than a lack of a table in the ring. We had a bunch of fourth wall breaking, a little casual homophobia, and a sprinkle of juvenile underwear based jokes. Cool cool cool.

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There was some good stuff here: Reigns is improving his improv skills. Sure, it went straight to emasculating his opponent, but it happened quick. That’s good! The story in general is also pretty good, once you wade through the inside baseball. Cena says he’s still the man, but Reigns claims that can’t be if he took 20 minutes to beat “a rookie.” I mean, it’s kind of a fair point on the one hand. But maybe Jordan is just that good?

And the whole Reigns-Cena feud is based on respect, or lack thereof. It’s 2017, but we’re still following the tried and true blueprints of “quality wresting program between two top guys.” The veteran doesn’t respect his perceived replacement, and the new top dog is trying to finish pushing the old guard out the door.

If we’re going to have another two-plus weeks to build to No Mercy, this is going to get old real quick. We’re already basically rehashing the first promo in the cycle, what’s left at this point? And if I had to guess, I’d say that the No Mercy match will be the first of more than one. So we’ll get to do this all over again, too. Yay.