That raw had 3 3 star matches and a 4 1/4+ match.

Brock's gimmick is basically being the worst and getting universal love for it.

And that's somehow the before picture.

I wouldn't be surprised if Orton went over Brock. Vince constantly tries to turn back to Orton at the top anyway, and now they need two sets of main eventers.

It's only okay for Orton to go over Brock if Orton can fire another four barrels of shots over the next month that stack up to last night's.

^ ya I see Orton taking a bunch of suplexes and then hitting an RKO and stealing the win

Can't wait until he brings up John Cena's infidelity or the fact that Dean Ambrose wrestled in CZW

I'm sure he'll end up on Miz TV to fire shats and hit Miz with an RKO

jobber matches being back is so good
graves is incredible

sasha/char was amazing

i thought reigns looked good tbh and agree with whoever said this will prob be good for him in the long run. kinda thought he was gonna win vs finn tbh

I hope Orton comes out with that huge smile every week then buries somebody for doing something he does. "You are an athlete, quit smoking cigarettes!" "Don't bitch and moan when somebody screws up!" "Put in full effort at all times!" "You refuse to take chances in any of your matches!"

Tonight's Ride Along is pretty good (The Club in one car, Jericho/Mark Henry in another car).

Best Raw in years. I can't think of the last time a Raw was that good based on it's content and not crowd hijackings. Don't think I'll enjoy the rise of Borelor as much as others but I like the general direction the show is going. Cole and Graves were very good, Saxton still useless.

When was the last time Raw was that good and wasn't smarkamania?

I don't know why they feel that they have to use Saxton in the booth, or to have a three-man booth at all. Just have him grab those quick interviews right before matches, whether in the ring or at ringside or in gorilla or wherever. He's fine at those.

I really enjoyed the post match interview with Reigns. The increase of pre and post match interviews really gave the show a more 6:05 WTBS feel, which is a good thing. Also loved the sprinkled use of jobbers. That will also really help in the long run. I would even give some of the lower guys such as Curtis Axel victories over them so when they are beat by a mid carder it feels a little more important

Plus with jobbers you can let them lose to some other moves so it isn't quite so stupid when someone kicks out of a move that has literally resulted in 0 pinfalls when the announcers are amazed that someone kicked out of it.

Agree with all, blown away with the improved overall feel.

Three hours is a long time to have only 2 announcers talking. Often baseball announce teams have a third person come in to give the others a breather for a few innings, and baseball announcers don't raise their voices as much as wrestling announcers.

But how can you not find somebody better than Saxton out of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people that would love to be an announcer on TV?

This is a strong point, though I don't expect them to ever utilize this.

I don't either, but I didn't expect cogent storylines, great promos, jobber matches, wrestlers having motivations, or Balor pinning Reigns clean, so you never know!

I watched all 3 hours. Thats saying something huge for the quality of that show. Honestly kind of wish the womens match was the curtain closer. That was awesome

I sort of wish the same, but 10:00 being an honored spot on the show seems to be a thing.

Realized today that the Women's Title really seems to have overtaken the midcard men's belts in importance and impact. If Cesaro and Rusev had put on a four-star match last night with Cesaro shipping the US Title, I really don't think it would have felt as big. With the women they've done a good job of putting together long reigns and being fairly protective of the champion.

If the Sasha/Char match goes on last over Reigns/Balor I would have been much less surprised by the result. Not sure if that was their logic or not.

Between Battleground and this looks like I picked a decent time to check in and start watching again.

I guess I also cant complain about the middle of the show having some greatness, since thats when it tends to really drag and make me want to leave

The Balor/Reigns slot yesterday actually wasn't the better slot than the slot Sasha/Charlotte got. For one, the show's ratings almost always go steadily down after the 2nd hour so more people see the 10 est match than the last match. But last night in particular Cena was in the dark match main event, and he's still by far the biggest draw so casuals were taking a break or getting hyped up to see Cena rather than that match.

Various things:

1. Raw ratings were up to 3.339 million from 3.133 million the week before. It continued the trend of decline as the show progressed though at 8PM: 3.412M viewers 9PM: 3.350M viewers 10PM: 3.254M viewers. This is nice, but next week is the much more important one I think. After all the stuff/changes, I hope to see an uptick.

2. Vince Russo appears to be ANGRY (according to some reddit thread. I havent checked any sources etc)


3. I'm curious to see what's going to happen with the women/tag teams on Smackdown since they have nothing to fight for. I believe the only face woman on smackdown is Becky (natalya, eva marie, carmella, bliss?) and the tag teams are American Alpha, the Usos, and a lot of jobber heels (ascension, vaudevillains, breezango). So it'll be interesting to see what they end up doing in both divisions.

I get a kick out of "the IWC" in this day and age. The vast majority of people talk about things they like online with other people that like those things (whether it be message boards, facebook, or twitter) and wrestling is no different.