We kick off the evening's festivities, taped from London, with Dean Ambrose coming out to announce that he is acting GM as Kurt Angle isn't there. Miz is not happy with this choice of leadership. Luckily, he gets a call from Stephanie McMahon who tells him that he can be co-GM for the evening. Dean gives zero fucks about this. Miz says that he beat Rollins and Balor single-handed last week. Ambrose offers to shake his hand but BRAUN decides he has seen enough. He is taped up but comes down to remind everyone that he murdered Roman Reigns and as long as he keeps coming back to life he will continue to murder him, then he can finally fight Brock Lesnar. He then gets interrupted by Kalisto, of all people. Kalisto says, incorrectly, that nobody treats him like garbage and challenges BRAUN to a match. BRAUN says he is injured but that he could beat him with one arm. Dean agrees and makes the match. BRAUN seems besmirched by this so Dean wisely retreats. Before he goes though he makes the opening match of the night.....
The Miz vs Finn Balor. It's a solid match but I felt like the crowd never really got fully on board with it. It started off with Miz in charge before Balor took over. Miz decided to shove Balor into the ref and Miz demanded that the ref DQ Balor. As Miz is co-GM that is what the ref did. Ambrose came out to reverse that decision and restart the match and the ref did that too. Apparently it's all about who talks last in the WWE. Anyway, Balor rolls Miz back in, Coup de Grace, pin. It wasn't the worst first 40 minutes of a show ever but it was typical British Raw stuff and also contained some nonsense.
Backstage we saw Nia Jax asking Alexa Bliss if she meant what she said last week when she said Nia was great. Alexa said she has no reason to lie. Nia says that until she gets a title shot she will be her new best friend. Alexa is pleased with her work.
Back from break we get Alexa Bliss vs Mickie James. Bayley is in Mickie's corner. The match ends with a really weird looking punch/forearm while James is on the top rope. It didn't look like a finish. Following the match Bayley chased off Alexa and Nia killed Mickie.
Backstage we get an argument between Miz and Ambrose about the structure of the show that contains the obligatory UK pop culture reference but what they fail to realise is that us UK wrestling fans couldn't give a shit about One Direction. Miz books Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt for later.
The BRAUN vs Kalisto match never really got started as BRAUN said he's injured and won't wrestle. He called Reigns a coward and murdered Kalisto anyway. Reigns then came out getting the reception that the WWE's biggest heel deserves. He beats on Strowman's injured arm mercilessly, ramming it into the ring post and hitting it with a chair. We get 'Lets go Strowman, Roman sucks' chants as Reigns tries to pretend what he is doing is heroic. The commentary team try to put Reigns over as brave too but the fact is that at best what he is doing is neutral. He beat an injured man with a weapon. He will literally never get cheered this way. I actually quite liked the segment but the commentary team do Reigns no favours.
Samoa Joe is doing an interview when he gets attacked by Seth Rollins. They will have a match later.
Backstage we get Goldust and R-Truth talking about winning the number 1 contenders tag team turmoil match that is coming up. I hope they are out first and get immediately eliminated. I hate R-Truth.
The first team out for tag team turmoil is Enzo & Cass. Enzo cuts a terrible promo about shitting yourself. They will face Shesaro to start the match. Cass does fine until he tags in Enzo who then proceeds to get battered and submitted after Sheamus removes Cass from the equation. Next team up is Heath Slater & Rhyno. Shesaro attack them before they get to the ring. Rhyno gets rammed into the steps and Heath gets a no offence beatdown and gets pinned. There was a funny moment where the crowd was chanting 'He's got kids' so Cesaro legdropped him in the groin and the crowd responded with 'No more kids' chants. Heel Shesaro is the best Shesaro. Team number 4 is Gallows & Anderson. This might be less one sided. By far the best part of the match to this point. After some good back and forth Shesaro pick up another win. Golden Truth are out next and Shesaro are noticeably beaten up. It doesn't matter though as Shesaro win easily enough. Following the match they continue the beating of Golden Truth which brings out the Hardys. Matt once again teases everyone with the Delete signal. This was a long but pretty effective way of putting Sheamus & Cesaro over as the best non Hardy Boys tag team on Raw. The wrestling was a mixed bag though.
It's Rollins vs Joe up next on the docket. They have a pretty good match that ends when Rollins gets run into an exposed turnbuckle and then Joe gets disqualified for kicking too much ass. He tells Rollins that it's over when he says it's over. I assume they will have some variety of gimmick match at Extreme Rules. Hopefully it's great.
The Miz gets his IC Title shot next week on Raw.
We get some cruiserweight action 2 1/2 hours in to the show. Neville is on commentary for Jack Gallagher vs TJP. Gallagher almost gets the immediate win with a big headbutt. The rest of the match was short with TJP picking up the win with a trunks assisted roll up. TJP continues to attack Gallagher after the match and Austin Aries makes the save. The only really worthwhile part of it was Neville's commentary.
It's Sasha Banks vs Alicia Fox. Fox gets the jobber entrance. The fans don't pay attention to anything that happened in this match. They are more amused by something that happened in the crowd. Fox's shoulder is up during the pin too.
Backlash is sponsored by Rocket League. Rocket League is great. Play it.
Main event time. Bray Wyatt vs Dean Ambrose. Miz is on commentary constantly making good points. The fact that Ambrose barely ever defends the title for instance. The match is average and the crowd don't even slightly give a fuck. It ends when Wyatt pins Ambrose following an assist from The Miz. Miz gets some cheap heat from the crowd by running the UK down as the show ends.
Thoughts
This was not a very enjoyable Raw. That is quite typical of UK Raws though. There were some alright bits in there, which there normally is, but the whole thing just felt so pedestrian.
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