The WWE Raw Reaction for 8/16/21
Welcome to the Raw Reaction, where I off my take on this week’s show in San Antonio. As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth review here.
A replay of last week’s happenings with RKBro leads us into Promo Time with Randy Orton. Orton talks about being a loner and doing things on his own. He’s ready for Omos tonight. Riddle comes out to try to make up with Orton but Orton wasn’t having any of it. AJ Styles and Omos show up and we end up with a rematch between Riddle and Styles. The promo was really good for laying the foundation for tonight’s festivities.
Riddle and Styles kick off in ring action, but Orton didn’t want to watch from ringside, so he headed to the back. The match was really good as we have seen in the past between these two. Riddle is really good at selling injuries throughout the entire match, even during his comebacks. He is one of the few that actually does that. Omos proved to be the difference here and provided the distraction to allow Styles to pin Riddle with a picture-perfect Styles Clash.
Up next is the rematch between Nikki A.S.H. and Rhea Ripley. Last week’s match was interrupted by Charlotte Flair, who wanders down to ringside again. The match was okay for the time they were given. Ripley picked up the win with a Riptide. Shockingly, Charlotte did not interfere. After the match, Nikki beat up Charlotte and disposed of her with Ripley’s help. Stand back! I smell a tag match coming.
Jinder Mahal was complaining to Veer and Shanky backstage about Drew McIntyre just before their handicap match with McIntyre. I’m not sure who’s handicapped here. As we saw a couple of weeks ago, McIntyre tosses Mahal’s flunkies around. Since there is a stipulation with this match, it ends clean with McIntyre Claymore Kicking Shanky to ban both Veer and Shanky from ringside at SummerSlam. Veer looks to be the better wrestler of the two. Shanky is, well, tall.
The highly anticipated (allegedly) debut of Moist TV (yes, really) with John Morrison is up next with his guest The Miz. They are really going all in with this moist gimmick, eh? Why is there a kiddie pool with rubber duckies and an inflatable swan in the ring? Morrison asked Miz why he faked his injury and Damien Priest came out to stir the pot. Priest challenged Miz to a match (another rematch) before pushing him into the kiddie pool. I know that this is laying the groundwork for the John Morrison face turn, but what did I just see/write?
The Priest/Miz match was kept short, thankfully, and Priest won with a Brogue Kick to Miz while Sheamus looked on from commentary. I think that Brogue looked better than what Sheamus can do.
Rematch Mania continues with the expected Mace/Mansoor match that was set up last week. The match served its purpose, but it looked well-rehearsed. The match was another quickie with Ali aiding Mansoor with a dropkick on Mace to reverse the pin out of the referee’s sight for the Mansoor win. I think we have our preshow tag match.
Our first and only non-rematch of the night was Randy Orton taking on Omos in a Three Minute Protected Raw Special. The match was nothing to really write home about and ended on a protection DQ when AJ Styles interfered in the match. Riddle does the run in face save and we finally get the Raw Tag Team Title match set for SummerSlam. I’m going to pencil in a title change for now.
Raw is Rematch continues with Jeff Hardy wanting a rematch (sigh) with Karrion Kross. Kross destroys Hardy with the Kross Jacket submission in less time than it took to write this up. With Hardy painting his eyelids, we get a cool visual of his “eyes” bugging out while in the Kross Jacket.
Oh yeah, free Doudrop.
Earlier today, Reggie did some flips in the park evading R-Truth and Akira Tozawa in their 24/7 title quest. That was a cool flip over the car, though.
Holla! Holla, Playas! The Teddy Long Tag Team Special pulls in with Nikki A.S.H. and Rhea Ripley taking on Charlotte Flair and Nia Jax. It’s rematches disguised as a tag match. Nia decided to channel Rikishi throughout the match for some reason. At least she didn’t injure anybody ahead of SummerSlam. Charlotte pinned Rhea with a Natural Selection just because.
We wrap up the night with the Goldberg/Bobby Lashley face to face. Goldberg said he’s not back for the money but so his son Gage can see his dad lose. If he wants to see him win, he needs to watch videos on YouTube. Anyway, Lashley comes out looking ready to do Goldberg’s taxes and MVP tried his best to hype the match nobody really wants to see. Lashley tried for a weak-looking clothesline only to eat a weaker-looking spear from Goldberg. Goldberg takes Gage out of the crowd so they can walk backstage together to close out the show.
Let’s look at tonight’s highs and lows.
The Highs
Nia Jax did not injure anybody in the tag team match.
The Lows
Let’s make the Go Home show to the second biggest PPV Rematch City. The only match that wasn’t a rematch was Orton/Omos and it was more of an angle than anything. SummerSlam got good promotion but can we please have some new matchups?
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That’s all I’ve got, until next time