WWE RAW Report (September 29, 2014): No Brock Lesnar, no problem

Mizdow > The Miz

A couple of things to note here:

1. HHH looking Sandow dead in the eye and saying his job was to make him laugh earlier in the night? That certainly felt like a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to people wondering if Sandow was in someone’s dog house.
2. Sandow is killing it and everyone in the WWE knows it.

Damien Sandow’s match led into the Hulk Hogan segment in the final hour. That’s some prime card placement. He might be “saddled” with this comedic gimmick, but he is so good at it. Hell, he’s a better Miz than Miz.

I love it when guys manage to find a way to fight back and earn a spot on the show they deserve. I hope they run with the Mizdow gimmick for another month or two because somehow it keeps getting better.

I can’t crap on this Hulk Hogan segment because of this woman.

Seriously, look at her:

All the feels. Photo Credit: WWE.com

I have no idea what her back story is beyond “cancer survivor”. Hulk Hogan may be her favorite wrestler, he may not. Maybe she’s just so overwhelmed by the moment of being on camera after kicking cancer’s ass. I have no clue, I don’t need to.

This hit me right in the feels and even Hogan’s tired shtick couldn’t take that moment away.

Randy Orton and Kane are tired of repeating RAW too.

One of my favorite things in the modern WWE is when they directly address criticisms thrown at them. In this instance, Randy Orton and Kane play the internet wondering why in the world they keep having to repeat the same match over and over again. Even better, they manage to keep it in kayfabe. Isn’t this Seth’s mess? Why are we the ones cleaning this up?

I love this so much. The “why the hell are they doing this?” is easily the number one thing that gets on my nerves on an episode of RAW. You can run repeats of matches out there, but at least have a reason for doing it. More often than not that “why” is always missing so there is no investment in the match at all. It’s just there and it doesn’t matter if it’s good because we have zero reason to get behind it.

This week, they had the same problem, but fixed it. Orton and Kane questioned why they should do this and Stephanie comes in to manipulate them and call them soft. Kane even calls her out on this, but Stephanie still wins in the end because she knows both Kane and Orton take their ruthless personas seriously. It doesn’t matter if it’s the fans or her saying they are soft because if they are, what do they have left? Certainly not a job with the Authority and perhaps not even the WWE.

It’s an overly simplified “why” but at least the WWE is delivering it. The ending makes a lot more sense as well with this reasoning. Yeah, they are helping Seth clean up his mess, but they are going to look like badasses doing it. Everyone hits their finishers on Ambrose and Cena and they assist in ensuring both of their heads met Rollins’ briefcase via Curb Stomp.

That’s miles better than “repeat match, repeat ending” which is what we’ve seen far too much of lately.

Hey, that was a lot of fun without Brock wasn’t it?

Beyond the opening segment, Brock wasn’t even mentioned again. To be quite honest, this was Dean Ambrose’s show from start to finish and it worked so well.

If the rumors are indeed true and there will be no title defense at Hell in a Cell, the WWE can still make that a great show. I want to see Dean Ambrose take on Seth Rollins in a Hell in a Cell match in the worst way. I believe in that so strongly that I will probably pay more money than I should to attend the show that’s in my backyard. There is no way that match alone wouldn’t be worth the price of attendance.

The trick, of course, is if the WWE can get there and get the WWE Universe to buy in. If they keep it up at this rate, I have no doubt they can pull it off. Just please, please don’t make it a convoluted mess to get there. This is the hottest angle in the WWE right now and they would be fools if they let it go to waste.