WWE Monday Night Raw: July 15th, 2019 “Cowboy” Round-Up

The night after Extreme Rules, we kick off Summerslam season with what is also allegedly Paul Heyman’s first Raw. After making AEW look like a show at Hackensack, NJ high school last night, WWE tries to capitalize on the momentum of a good show.

• Brock opens the show as Raw finally feels like a big deal again. Like Brock or not, he is a presence like no other.
• Paul Heyman makes allusions to his real life takeover, which is interesting. Will Heyman actually be made GM at sometime?
• 10 man Battle Royal announced for who Brock’s opponent will be. The opponents are placed on the Jumbotron as a real-time focus group.
• Seth Rollins gets no pop.
• Randy Orton gets a gigantic pop.
• Big E gets a nice pop.
• Lots of love for Cesaro.
• Enormous pop for Strowman which surprises me a little bit.
• Mild pop for Rey Mysterio who has not been interesting for 15 years.
• Beautiful shower of boos for Baron Corbin. I love Baron, but last night was time to pull the trigger.
• Almost no reaction for Sami Zayn. “The person I hope wins the Battle Royal”, buries Heyman.
• Almost no reaction for Bobby Lashley.
• Shockingly big reaction for Roman Reigns. You can send your thanks to Stamford, CT addressed to Mr. Shane McMahon.
• Heyman says “In this universe, you’re all Brock’s bitches” as we all should rejoice these foul words and Lacey Evans’ ass from last night inching us further and further from the shitty PG era.
• Fatal 4-way Elimination match for female #1 contender also. This is what I keep saying: GIVE ME REASONS TO WATCH. Every match should have SOME kind of stipulation or impact on storylines. Every single one.
• And then they immediately give me reason to tune out with a meaningless 6-man tag.
• The Usos are really gonna double-down on that stupid Little Rascals shit, huh?
• Here comes Bobby “Need Someone To Eat The Pin” Roode.
• Many times I disagree with Vince “messing up” with NXT talents. People don’t realize NXT is a different product. For example, I have a buddy of mine at work. The guy loves WWE. He watches every Raw, every Smackdown and every PPV despite having a great career and a new wife. And he never, ever watches NXT. When an NXT talent is called up, this guy sees them for the very first time.
• I bring this up because Bobby Roode is in this shitty match, and when I bring up something like how I absolutely can’t believe WWE didn’t use Bobby Roode properly, the guy looks at me puzzled and says “Why?” To him, Bobby Roode is just a boring guy with a robe and an incredible theme song.
• This is why I believe WWE should’ve picked either Bobby Roode or Andrade, flipped a coin, and hot-shotted one of them to the top belt. Both could’ve benefited deeply from being made a big deal right out of the gate. Now I hope they do this with either Velveteen or Matt Riddle.
• Alright I’m gonna say it, Ricochet’s flipping sell of the Phenomenal Forearm is unbelievably silly.
• I know it’s been memed to death, but how the fuck did “Viking Experience” get okayed? Like even if it was Vince himself, somebody should’ve chained themselves to Roman until he agreed to forego it.
• “Viking Raiders” refusing to pin the jobber means that WWE is doing one of my enormous pet peeves: Taking people the crowd very obviously WANTS to love and forcing heel heat that isn’t there.
• The best example of this was Seth Rollins’ return from injury in 2016.
• Drew McIntyre threatens to humble Cedric Alexander tonight. What is he going to do, book him to run down the hallway with 15 other jobbers trying to win a 24/7 title for 3 weeks?
• After beating the living shit out of Cedric for the whole match, Cedric gets a surprise comeback win. And no, this isn’t a “burial”, geniuses. Nothing wrong with losing a surprising match every now and then. “It just wasn’t your night” and then the character can move on.
• Now speaking of burial, here’s another tough-talking, loud promo from Samoa Joe who has a slightly higher win percentage than Glass Joe from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.
• Hey, that should be his nickname. Glass Joe.
• Samoa Joe gets the win over Balor, but I’m sorry. It’s done. Nobody cares. This type of character can’t eat loss after loss after loss and suddenly magically become dangerous again. The audience won’t fall for it.
• Oh shit! Lights going out! I hope this is it!!! C’mon Bray!!!
• It is Bray! With his cool clown mask and disturbing music.
• The laughing has never done it for me.
• Quick analysis: The feel was right. It was creepy, the music wasn’t enjoyable at all (in a good way!) and it felt dark and eerie.
• Of course, he’ll get a pop and holy shit chants upon first glance. But now you need to go all the way. Make it UNSETTLING to see him. Make it impossible to cheer. Make him your first ever true horror heel.
• And I mean HORROR. not “spooky”. I hate horror movies because I am a gigantic pussy and hate jump scares. Make me DREAD seeing Bray on screen.
• Would be very nice if Finn ended up going heel and joining The Club. Haven’t seen a “power struggle” in a faction in quite a while, and I love that type of story. “Who is the REAL leader of this faction?” That kinda deal.
• Maria Kanellis is so hateable. What a great heel.
• Did Zack Ryder just become the first ever guy to be waiting in the ring with no music to actually win his fucking match?
• I’m serious. Is he?!
• Who in the flying fuck cares about a 6 man tag match?
• Hey, remember when Kalisto beat Braun Strowman clean?
• Yup, it happened. Go ahead and Google it, I’ll wait here.
• Back? That’s right. Dumpster match. Clean win. It counts.
• So now we have our women’s #1 contender match. Alexa with her goth Lucky Charms leprechaun on the outside, Naomi, Natalya and Carmella.
• Carmella would be the best choice of this bunch, and low-key has the 3rd best title reign of the past 2 years behind Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair.
• Carmella’s 10 pin attempts and screaming frustration is pure gold.
• Can you imagine if we live in the fucking timeline where it’s Becky Lynch vs Naomi or Becky Lynch vs Nattie at Summerslam? Christ.
• Alexa sneaks in after Carmella does all the work and rolls her up with a pin.
• Now all of our hopes and dreams of a decent Summerslam promo lie with Alexa pulling this off.
• No, seriously, just imagine “YO STRAIGHT FIRE, IMMA SNATCHU BALD!” for 4 fucking weeks.
• Or Nattie walking out and saying whatever the fuck Nattie says. For 4 full weeks.
• Cool blockbuster off the steps from Naomi to Nattie. Credit where it’s due.
• I miss Lacey Evans.
• My only hope for a decent promo is Chekov’s Nikki at ringside.
• For those who don’t feel like Googling: There’s a literary device called “Chekov’s Gun”. It essentially states that if a gun is introduced in act 1, it MUST be used by act 3, or else why show it at all? So what the fuck would be the point of Nikki at ringside if she won’t factor into the finish?
• That awesome Alexa pin should’ve gotten the fall.
• Alexa is also very hot. Journalistic observations like this are why you visit “Cowboy” Bob’s blog.
• Bliss helping on the power-bomb pin was brilliant logic! Naomi kicking out of a double-pin is something that would even make Hulk Hogan say “That’s too far, brother.”
• Crowd chants “This Is Awful” As they imagine the incoming month of potential Nattie promos.
• Hey look guys, we don’t have The Goddess around for her Kenny Omega workrate, okay? We have her around because she’s an elite personality. Sorry, it’s true.
• Nattie wins. This has to be what it felt like the day that Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper died in that plane crash.
• What a horrible fucking booking decision.
• Nattie “Well first off, Lexy sucks.” Trying to play off the crowd sentiment during the match. Got NO FUCKING POP. None. Zero.
• If Nattie got on the microphone and said “Guys I’ll tell you this, Tree of Life by Terrance Malick is a great film.” she would’ve gotten the same pop.
• I forgot Summerslam is in Toronto of course that’s why they did this. What garbage.
• The only thing that would top an impossibly shitty Becky vs Nattie angle would be a meaningless Miz vs Ziggler angle.
• Is this my dream come true of R-Truth pinning Drake Maverick while he is “consummating” his marriage? We are getting to 10:30 so that’s a good sign. If your 6 year old is awake while R-Truth is pinning Drake Maverick during honeymoon sex then that’s on you.
• Why would the referee help with this ruse? Isn’t that highly biased?
• Would’ve preferred Drake under the covers and thinking it’s his wife crawling on top of him, with R-Truth making an unbelievably inappropriate joke after he wins the title. But whatever.
• Okay fine, cheap joke, but Corey’s “I would’ve utilized the small package” was pretty funny. You know it’s funny when WWE Robot Michael Cole cracks up.
• Nice pan to Seth’s focused face as Corbin comes out. Seth better watch out or he’s going to become a good actor.
• I kinda want Randy vs Brock again after that brutal blood war a few years ago. I have a soft spot for Randy, sue me.
• Big E is such a random entrant entrant in this that you have to wonder if he has a chance? Play some kind of New Day power struggle if he actually got the belt? Or maybe Big E doesn’t reach his dream at Summerslam, but Kofi did, causing jealousy?
• I am on record as saying if you had to push a New Day member to the title that Big E was infinitely better than Kofi, but I’m all New Day’d out lately.
• Rey Mysterio looks like a homosexual pony with that mask. I have nothing against homosexual ponies, I’m just saying.
• Crowd surprisingly behind Big E in this Big E vs Braun showdown.
• An RKO and there goes my dumbass Big E battle royal win.
• Sami Zayn’s celebrating is hilarious.
• What moron would watch pro wrestling and think you should celebrate an elimination and turn your back on all your opponents?
• The RKO still is cool after 5 million of them.
• Down to Strowman, Rollins, Reigns and Corbin. It’s gonna be a rough Summerslam.
• The most entertaining of the 4 is immediately out, as Corbin is ganged up on.
• Roman vs Braun. Now that was a great feud. Roman got no credit for totally getting Braun over.
• Wait Randy is still there. Randy vs Rollins. Really pulling for Randy.
• “I give a shit” Randy Orton is still an elite talent.
• Crowd likes it too. Putting Rollins over here would be a mistake.
• Rollins win to give us the rematch that nobody ever asked for.
• Seth Rollins is an amazing talent and a worthy champion. But we’ve seen this. It’s stale. We need heel Rollins back or a brand new storyline. Plus, with his long hair and beard, he looks like Roman’s little brother.
• Also, if we don’t get a time-honored spot where Seth punches Brock in the balls only to see he finally has on a cup, then what are we here for?
• Seth: “I promise you that Summerslam will look a lot like Wrestlemania.” Yeah, that’s why it’s fucking boring, Seth.

So what do we have? The awesome entrance of Bray. Great! The unbelievably shitty Becky vs Nattie. The unfathomably bland Brock vs Seth rematch. One step forward, two steps back.