Official Raw Across the Universe Thread: 8/1/2016

Yea noticed that. Dead ringer in the face though...wait....Nevermind it's late

I enjoyed RAW to be honest, slightly too much filler at times but a solid show that hit the right notes when needed.

Smackdown doesn't have as big of a hill to climb this week if it wants to beat Raw.

Nah. Should be fun.

Didn't realise how much I'd miss Orton til he was gone. Creative have done him no favours in recent times.. but hopefully with smaller rosters now they can book him more effectively.

...... Kanyon was a favorite of mine.... Thanks for that Debbie.

Not a great show, not a bad show, just a show.

A slight tick above an average Raw pre-split. All and all, that's a bit of a disappointment. I didn't expect anything in the realm of what we received last week, but I thought they reverted to a lot of "old-hat" booking this week and that really hurt the quality of the show.

I think we saw a little bit of the problem Raw might have with depth going forward, producing a 3 hour show every week.

I really, really thought I was going to be pissed off about breaking the rules of the split already by having Orton show up, but, to my shock, they did it right. If it's going to happen, this is exactly how it needs to be done. Steph and Mick need to be outraged. Security needs to rush the ring. The wrestler interfering needs to get the hell out of there. And, most importantly, they cannot, under any circumstances, play the damn guy's music. They nailed all of it, so, it's cool with me.

Not to mention, it netted Orton one of the biggest reactions he's received in years, and instantly made the Summerslam match more enticing.

Other than that, it's worth noting that I didn't think Finn shrank on the mic tonight. I was worried about that. I also didn't see the disparagement in size between he and Seth that I expected. More reason to believe he's going to flourish going forward. I hope I'm right.

Yeah, makes sense. It also probably has a lot to do with travel schedules being what they are right now. Until the rosters start splitting house shows and scheduling around their TV day, the Smackdown crew is sort of in limbo on Monday nights. Most of them work a Sunday house show, then need to be at TV on Tuesday, so they're not flying home. In other words, most of them have absolutely nowhere to be, so, the big names get used in the dark main event to boost star power.

I'm guessing they'll be adding Monday and Tuesday night house shows opposite of TV soon enough, at least during some weeks. It makes sense for Smackdown, especially.

Really mediocre Raw imo but I loved the end. Orton was
great. Really want to see Orton beat Brock. I really more so just want to see the F5 into an RKO. Really good feud building moment. It all felt important.