WWE Raw: Kai Canet wants to Rumble with iShowSpeed

Thomas Starr

WWE Raw: Kai Canet wants to Rumble with iShowSpeed

Someone out there should edit out all the long pauses between matches and interviews and see what the run time would be for this show. Once they got past the nine o’clock hour, the crowd was unenthusiastic. Who could blame them when the matches were not very good and WWE felt the need to have a YouTuber come out and challenge another YouTuber amongst all the other filler tonight.

This is not a recommended show and even the “must-see” moments could easily be skipped. If you are not watching it live, be ready to fast forward frequently.

Must-see moment:

Paul Heyman’s promo

On a boring show, this was a ray of sunshine. Paul gave a great promo hyping Roman’s participation in the Rumble. The interaction with Drew McIntyre was also a nice twist and Drew, as always, was his usual slimy self.

Quick Results:

The War Raiders defeated The Judgement Day to retain the tag team titles

Rey Mysterio defeated Xavier Woods

Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan defeated Bianca Belair and Naomi

Drew McIntyre defeated Sami Zayn

Chronological recap:

Michael Cole mentioned the history of wrestling in Atlanta. He mentioned Georgia Championship and WCW.

They had shots of wrestlers arriving at the arena earlier today. The most notable being Cody Rhodes who had his daughter and his wife with him. Yes, Brandi has reappeared on WWE TV.

Pat McAfee ran down the results from Saturday Night’s Main Event. He started to resemble a tomato while he screamed and yelled. Hopefully, he is not drinking on-air again.

Seth Rollins came out wearing fabric that once covered the leather couch in Orlando’s Parliament House. The tackiness was at an elevated level.

Seth talked about winning the Royal Rumble. The cameras had to switch frequently because he was all over the ring. He even lay down on the canvas. That is a subtle change from the Vince Era. The wrestlers had to stand unnaturally staring straight ahead to the hard camera. Three quarters of the audience would see a back or sides for the entire promo.

Rollins teased facing Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. The crowd was mixed in their reaction. In general, they seem unsure what to make of Rollins lately. Gunther interrupted the promo.

Gunther called Jey Uso a clown and when the crowd started to chant “Yeet,” he told them to settle down because he beat Jey on Saturday.

Seth said that Gunther’s title belt was built on Rollins’ hard work. Gunther said Rollins was once great, but he is not the best wrestler on the roster anymore. Gunther asked Seth to win the Royal Rumble and choose to face him at WrestleMania. They were both interrupted by Logan Paul.

The audience gave Logan the Dominik treatment and began drowning him out with boos. It was difficult to hear anything he said at first. Paul even played into it by saying “I can’t hear you, Atlanta.” He announced he was entering the Royal Rumble, but he is not looking to throw twenty-nine wrestlers over the top rope he wants to do it the easy way.

Gunther changed his mind and said he was rooting for Paul to win the Rumble now so he could slap Logan upside the head.

Cathy Kelley was backstage with CM Punk. Kelley asked how he thought Logan Paul would do in the Rumble. What answer was she expecting? Sami then confronted CM Punk; Kelley awkwardly exited stage left. Sami told Punk he was something CM Punk is not and that is a WrestleMania main eventer. Yikes.

Sami then ran into Karrion Kross in the back and Kross said a lot of things. I do not know what he wanted to be honest.

Jackie Redmond introduced Austin Theory and Grayson Waller as the newest members of the Raw roster. They called out several rappers at ringside including Two Chainz. Then they called out the tag team division on Raw.

The Judgement Day vs. The War Raiders

JD McDonagh and Dominik Mysterio came out to new theme music. The Judgement Day double teamed Eric while the ref stood around waving at them.

JD did a moonsault out of the ring and his head and neck landed on the announce table. Michael Cole called for someone to check out JD before he was allowed to continue. They let him continue wrestling without medical intervention.

The match broke down at ringside. They were all outside for a long-time trading flips. This looks like an AEW cluster match.

The doctor finally got to ringside and JD waved her off and she left. How unprofessional.

This was a mess. Carlito came out and spit an apple on Ivar’s face. The ref did not notice all the pieces of apple on the canvas. The War Raiders finally won with their finish.

Winner: The War Raiders

Ludwig met Butch in the back. He said Penta needs to be taught a lesson. The New Day interrupted and said they agreed. Ludwig and Butch walked off glaring at The New Day.

Cathy Kelley showed up for some reason. She did a comedy routine with The New Day only it was not funny.

Rey Mysterio vs. Xavier Woods

McAfee said Mysterio could do this until he is ninety-five. Rey then had difficulty climbing the ropes. Good timing, Pat.

The New Day came out with no entrance music. Woods screamed at a couple fans who reached out and touched him. Kofi referred to Woods as “Atlanta’s favorite son.” Kingston then made fun of the Atlanta Falcons. Cole said, “Well, now he is a bad guy. He made fun of the local sports team, which is what bad guys do.” The sarcasm was dripping off him.

In the middle of the match, Xavier’s family showed up at ringside to show off their “The New Day Sucks” t-shirts. This was so lame. This distracted Woods enough for Rey to get the win.

Winner: Rey Mysterio

Sami and Seth had yet another heart-to-heart in the back. Counselor Sami wanted Seth to know that when he kicked him last week it was an accident. Seth said if it happens again then they would have a problem.

Jey Uso entered through the crowd with one of the rappers. Cole said, “Look who Jey is coming to the ring with!” Then there was an awkward silence followed by McAfee saying, “Uhh.” Cole finally found out it was Quavo, who they had shown earlier. Excellent job, guys.

It is a cool entrance, but this took forever. Why do they still feel the need to pad their run time so much? All he said was he was going to win the Rumble. He went around his leg to get to his elbow bone.

Pat McAfee then had a live microphone and made some ejaculation jokes. Then he interviewed Xavier Woods’ family. This is just another bit of filler we did not need. Pat tried to get the hashtag “YachtyLovesMami” over. He was incredibly annoying here.

Jackie Redmon interviewed Lyra Valkyria. Lyra promised to be a fighting champion. She declared for the Royal Rumble. Then American Made interrupted the interview and Ivy Nile said she was going to take the Intercontinental Title from her.

In yet another instance of an interview segueing into a skit, American Made poked fun at Alpha Academy. Please, do not tell me they are still feuding.

Bianca and Naomi vs. Liv and Raquel

Bianca and Naomi were announced for NXT tomorrow night. McAfee made sure to point out that Corey Graves would be on the show.

I do not know if it was because of the long delay between matches, but the crowd was silent for the first half of this match.

At one point, Naomi used her legs to press Raquel’s face into her butt and vagina. Someone was late so Raquel had to stand there awkwardly until Liv showed up. Unnecessarily vulgar and more sloppy work.

These four thought they were main eventing WrestleMania and did multiple near falls and false finishes. Dom got involved as well. Bianca had a visual pin, but Dom had the ref distracted. Liv took advantage of all the shenanigans to get the pin.

Winner: Liv and Raquel


Somebody named Kai Cenat showed up. He had his own entrance graphics, but generic music. Okay. No idea who this guy was, but the fans cheered. This life-long WWE fan is at his first live event. I am assuming he is twelve, because if you were a grown-up celebrity why would this be your first event?

Kai called out iShowSpeed. Please, do not do this. They teased a confrontation between the two.

We had more filler as McAfee showed a clip of Cole entering the ring to wrestle at WrestleMania. This went on and on and on.

A Penta highlight package and interview aired. He spoke in Spanish and English. He announced he was entering the Royal Rumble.

They went back to Pat and Cole who did some more comedy about slapping five. This was hilarious for the two of them.

Paul Heyman came out of nowhere. Finally, something interesting. I hope. Paul announced Roman Reigns was on the cover of their video game. He said it was Roman versus everyone at the Royal Rumble, and he was coming for his title belt.

Paul called everyone in the locker room Roman Reigns wannabes. He knelt and acted like he was someone from the locker room praying to be Roman. Drew McIntyre’s music then hit.

McIntyre stared up at the WWE video game banner hanging from the ceiling. Then he called himself the “Daddy of the Bloodline.” Drew went over his history with Roman Reigns and the Bloodline. He asked Paul to thank him for being the catalyst for the formation of the Bloodline.

Paul said Drew was crowding him. Drew stepped back sarcastically and then told Paul to tell his client that he was going to be the one to eliminate him. The client was not Roman though it was CM Punk. He then told Paul to run. Paul waddled away.

Jackie Redmond interviewed Bron Breakker. Bron called the other participants in the Royal Rumble “senior citizens.” He declared for the Royal Rumble. Penta then showed up and did his Cero Miedo hand signal.

Sami Zayn vs. Drew McIntyre

Zayn busted his nose early in the match and bled all over the mats around the announce table. Drew then took a nasty looking bump on the announce table when he tried to hit a Claymore kick.

A lot of hard hitting action here. Drew won and beat up Sami some more until Cody made the save. Rhodes dumped McIntyre out of the ring and was attacked by Kevin Owens. Kevin and Drew then teamed up against Cody. Sami tried to make the save and kicked Cody in the face.

Winner: Drew McIntyre

They added even more filler as they waited for Cody to recover. That and they raised the titles above the ring. So, this guy was just kicked in the face and now he is cutting a promo about working so hard. Rhodes said he wants to get passed Owens. CM Punk’s music interrupted.

Punk asked Cody if he was okay. Rhodes stood there mouth awkwardly agape. Punk said that Cody is trying to be Superman. Rhodes asked if Punk was really his friend. Punk said he was his friend and that he loved him.

Punk explained that he has been down the same road as Cody, and he did a lot of things he regrets and does not want Cody to do the same. He went on and on about all the work that Cody has been doing. Okay, a lot of this was true but it also came out of nowhere.

Finally, they got to a point. Punk said he was going to be the one to beat Cody. He said unlike everyone else he would not stab Rhodes in the back instead he would stab him in the front. That would have been a good place to stop, but they kept going and going. Mercifully, it eventually ended.

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