A Room with a Review: Raw 2/17/20
The state of Washington is home to Raw this week. No word on if William Regal will be returning with his lumberjack-adjacent gimmick or not.
- This week’s Raw begins with The Viper, Randy Orton. They recap what he did to Matt Hardy last week, including the Conchairto. Orton says that Matt Hardy, who he is scheduled to face in a No Holds Barred match, is in the back trying to get cleared to wrestle. Matt comes out, still in street clothes, wearing a neck brace. He says he came here to fight tonight, regardless of what the WWE doctors say. Randy says that he loves Edge like a brother and that he’s sorry. He walks to the top of the ramp, stops, takes off his shirt and turns back toward the ring. Matt Hardy grabs a steel chair from the outside and yells for Randy to finish him. Matt wildly swings the chair and Orton hits an RKO. He grabs the chair and lays into Hardy. Randy then drags Matt to the outside and performs a Conchairto on the steel ring steps. Hardy sells it like death. Orton does it one more time before the commercial.
- Erick Rowan comes to the ring with his mystery pet. He will be facing off against Aleister Black, which is weird because they’ve both been doing the “squash local talent gimmick”. The match lasts through a commercial break, surprisingly, and is eventually won by Aleister after two Black Mass kicks.
- Charlotte Flair is here, fresh off of her appearance at NXT Takeover: Portland on Sunday. Charlotte is taking credit for building NXT into what it is today and says that Rhea Ripley is full of entitlement. Man, that’s rich.
- We return from the commercial break to a ringing bell. It’s a triple-threat match for the 24/7 championship between Mojo Rawley, R-Truth, and Riddick Moss. None of them got an entrance, so you know this is important. Moss retains after pinning Rawley. That’s it. That’s the match.
- Next is Drew McIntyre (without his ridiculous duster). He says Suplex City is in Claymore Country. Gotta sell shirts, I guess. Paul Heyman comes out and teases a Brock Lesnar appearance. Instead, he introduces MVP, Drew’s opponent for the evening. This was a completely different match 10 years ago. Drew wins in like a minute after a Claymore kick.
- Next is a recap of Count Bazler’s attack on Becky Lynch last week. No word on how much garlic Becky rubbed on herself this week.
- Becky comes to the ring carrying a brown paper bag. She pulls out a bunch of $100 bills and dumps them in the ring, saying that she’s paying her fine upfront for what she’s going to do to Shayna. Count Bazler appears on the TitanTron and says that she’s in the Elimination Chamber match to determine Becky’s WrestleMania opponent. Shayna says that she’s going to tear the living shit out of Becky. She said shit, just like AEW does every week!
- Backstage, Charly Caruso is talking with Bobby Lashley, Lana, Angel Garza, and Zelina Vega. The two men are teaming up against Rusev and Humberto Carillo. I love that they’ve started doing that thing where they combine two separate storylines just to keep things fresh. They’ve been keeping storylines siloed for years now and it never made sense. They do a fun spot where Garza rips off his pants (as is tradition) and rolls out of the ring so a fan can come up and give him a kiss on the cheek. There’s some great flippy stuff, but I really want to see a singles match between Rusev and Garza. The brief time they were in the ring together showed they have great chemistry. Anyway, Garza gets the win by rolling up Rusev and grabbing a handful of tights. We lie, we cheat, we steal.
- Next up is Natalya vs Kairi Sane w/ Asuka. They show when Asuka legit kicked Nattie in the face last week. The Kabuki Warriors come to the ring and say they don’t care about Nattie’s black eye. I’m still mad that they took away Kairi’s pirate gimmick not long after they announced a WrestleMania in a stadium that literally has a pirate ship in it. Kairi wins by count-out after Asuka kicks Nattie while the ref was distracted.
- After the commercial break, it’s time for the Monday Night Messiah, Seth Rollins, to deliver his sermon on the (3) count. He says that what he has to say is divine. He says that they are in the middle of a movement and the first stage was eliminating Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, and the Viking Raiders. The Raiders come down and pound on AOP while Rollins and Murphy scurry away. Rollins stops at the top of the ramp to watch what’s happening when KO comes out and hits him with a stunner.
- Charly stops Seth and his crew backstage after the break. Rollins says that Owens and the Viking Raiders can have a match with Murphy and AOP tonight.
- AJ Styles is back after his injury at the Royal Rumble. He and the OC head to the ring. AJ says he’s ready to find out his WrestleMania opponent. He doesn’t care who it is. Ricochet comes to the ring to challenge AJ, but Karl Anderson says he’ll take the match. Ricochet wins with a fireman’s carry into a Pele kick.
- Charly is backstage talking with Liv Morgan about Ruby Riott’s return, which included Liv getting waffle-stomped by Riott.
- Main event time. It’s Kevin Owens and The Viking Raiders (Erik and Ivar) w/o Samoa Joe against Murphy and AOP (Akam and Rezar) w/o Seth Rollins. I wonder where Joe is? Rollins isn’t their either, but the announcers give him the full Poochie treatment. KO hits a stunner on Murphy (who sells the hell out of it) but Rollins interrupts the pin and gets his team disqualified. Seth says they are going to crucify Owens, but the Street Profits come out to save the day.
- This episode was okay but not as good as Raw has been. I think they are stuck in a holding pattern until Super ShowDown, but I like the addition of the Street Profits in the main event. What are your thoughts on the show? Let me know in the comment section below.
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