WWE Raw results and observations (09/08/14)

This week's episode of WWE Raw was a step above the previous two shows.

Was it a great show? I don't think so. Was it good? I would lean toward yes, but only slightly. And that's in comparison to the last two weeks, which may have forever skewed my way of looking at shows.

Was it the abomination that has been Raw the last two weeks? No. Quite frankly, there was nowhere to go but up. At least you hoped that was the case.

As with any week, this week had its share of high points and low points, which we will dissect in a little bit.

In the meantime, let's run through the full match results from the show:

- Steel Cage match – Bray Wyatt def. Chris Jericho

- Paige & AJ Lee def. Rosa Mendes & Natalya

- Seth Rollins def. Sheamus

- Adrian Neville & Sami Zayn def. Tyson Kidd & Tyler Breeze

- Goldust & Stardust def. Los Matadores

- Adam Rose def. Titus O'Neil

- Roman Reigns def. Randy Orton via disqualification

Now let's dive into the my observations from the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore:

John Cena, Paul Heyman segment was very, very good

John Cena tends to cut a very formulaic promo. He usually starts his promos very monotone and very low before gradually raising his voice to a fever pitch.

It works sometimes and sometimes it's just boring, but that's his thing I guess.

But then sometimes, he can pull out a good, even great promo out of his brightly-colored hat and make you remember why he is the top man in the industry, but also make you yearn for more of those promos on a weekly basis, because those promos would make him likeable to people over the age of 12.

He had one of the latter promos Monday night. However, it didn't hurt that an all-time great promo man like Paul Heyman was in the ring with him while he cut it.

Cena confronted Heyman, as Brock Lesnar's advocate was ready to divulge how the 15-time world champion could defeat the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion at Night of Champions.

According to Heyman, all Cena would have to do is give in. While Cena believes in never giving up, Heyman said that the only way he would ever defeat Lesnar was to give in and finally lash out at his detractors that routinely chant, "Cena sucks!"

Although this sounded very similar to Kane telling Cena to embrace the hate back in 2012, this was a lot cooler, in my opinion. That's because Heyman was on top of his game as always and made a great case as to why Cena should in fact give in.

Heyman said that giving in, which included ditching the wristbands and the rainbow t-shirts, along with delivering a verbal tongue lashing to a fan, would give him the extra malice needed to defeat the beast that is Lesnar.

Heyman's argument was made in very entertaining fashion.

Cena looked as though he debated, but decided not to do so and proceeded to give a very emotional and passionate list of reasons why he was never going to give in and that he was always going to remain John Cena.

Instead of the credo of "Eat. Sleep. Conquer. Repeat," Cena lives his life by the credo of "Eat. Sleep. Be John Cena. Repeat."

A part of being John Cena is being the hero to little kids, who did their homework early so that they could make it to Raw in time, and having that kid's parent boo them, but still respect the fact that Cena is a role model for their children.

According to Cena, being him means being a hero to a real hero like a member of our armed forces, who gave him their Purple Heart after losing a leg in combat.

Not to mention, being the one wish of so many sick children across the country.

Cena sounded like he was showing genuine emotion during this part of the promo, which made me think, "Wow! If only he could be this guy more often." Instead, we sometimes get the Cena who pretends he's Jerry Seinfeld and cracks jokes.

Cena then challenged Lesnar to show up to Raw next week and fight him. If Lesnar didn't show, Cena said that he would fight Heyman instead.

Instead of leaving some intrigue around that aspect of the story, the WWE advertised the fact that Lesnar will be at Raw next week, essentially giving away the possibility of Cena fighting Heyman.

I know it wouldn't happen anyway, but at least leave something to chance. Just a little.

The Authority destroys Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns and Randy Orton had a long match in the main event where it looked like there was going to be a decisive winner.

However, that was not the case as the match was essentially a long-winded way of getting to The Authority laying a whooping on Reigns.

In the latter stages of the match, Orton called for Seth Rollins and Kane to come down to the ring, which brought with them a gang of stagehands, who began lowering the cage around the ring.

Before the cage could be lowered all the way, Reigns managed to dispose of Rollins and Kane, leaving him alone inside the cage with Orton.

Rollins and Kane stood helplessly outside the cage as Reigns delivered a spear to Orton despite the fact that they could have easily opened the door and waltzed right in before any of that occurred.

After Orton took the spear, Kane finally decided to open the door, which gave Rollins time to climb the side of the cage so that he could deliver an insane cross body from the top of it onto Reigns, which officially turned the tide for The Authority.

The Authority then commenced to beating the daylights out of Reigns as the show went off the air.

My only gripe with this entire segment (besides the fact that it took so long for someone to use the door to get inside of the cage) was that it essentially nullified the entire match that took place before it, which I thought was pretty entertaining.

The WWE chose to give the match plenty of time to build and even gave it not one, but two commercial breaks. I figured a match that long with an angle that is essentially right below the main event would have a decisive winner, but I guess I was wrong.

Chris Jericho, Bray Wyatt cage match was pretty good

The reason why the steel cage was in the building Monday was because the show opened with a match inside of it between Chris Jericho and Bray Wyatt.

Yes, a steel cage match opened the show. I'm guessing this was done to give people a reason to switch from Monday Night Football once 8 p.m. rolled around on the east coast.

Despite its awkward placement on the card, it was still a good match. In my mind, it was the best one these two have had in their feud, which was surprisingly lackluster.

I thought the cross body from the top of the cage by Jericho was pretty cool, although it led to a kind of anti-climactic ending to the match where Wyatt just rolled out of the cage after beating on Jericho's knee for five minutes.

This match was certainly better than the one Wyatt had against Cena at Extreme Rules a couple of months back, but that's because there wasn't a dozen instances of interference from Luke Harper and Erick Rowan.

That was mostly held to one spot in the match that led to Jericho jumping off the top of the cage onto Wyatt.

The feud between Jericho and Wyatt was less than stellar, but at least it ended on a good note.

Jerry Springer, Bella Twins segment wasn't terrible?

I think it wasn't terrible, which is I guess a step in the right direction for this horrid feud.

Don't get me wrong. This was by no means good. For starters, you have Jerry Springer come out there to intervene in this squabble.

Since when is a talk show host needed to settle a dispute in wrestling? I thought that's what the matches were for.

Secondly, Springer hasn't been remotely relevant since 1997, but that shows just how out of touch the WWE can be sometimes.

That's because someone in the towers in Stamford, Conn. believes Springer is going to be able to compete with a football game between the New York Giants, a team from the country's largest market, and the Detroit Lions, a team that features an incredible talent like Calvin Johnson and a very good quarterback in Matthew Stafford.

Yeah, good call WWE.

The fans in Baltimore did give a couple of, "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" chants, but that was just for nostalgia purposes.

Springer's show was only relevant because people thought the debauchery that took place was real. Then people found out that it's as scripted as the WWE and people have cooled off on it immensely.

Now let's get to the segment itself. It was bad. Was it terrible? No. It could have been worse than bad, but it was still pretty bad.

Nikki Bella was pretty good this time, but Brie Bella just can't seem to get the inflections in her voice right when it's time to deliver a powerful line. They both give a good effort though.

I can't say that for their dad, who said maybe four words about how much the feud between his daughters is breaking his heart. Their mom got in on it as well. She also said something that no one cared about.

Eventually, the Bella Twins' brother came out in jeans and a pair of penny loafers with no socks. I don't think he won anyone over looking like that.

He then said the worst two lines of the segment before all hell broke loose.

Before you knew it, Springer was knocked down, as he was caught between a Bella fight. Now here is Springer, who is for all intents and purposes is an elderly man that is being physically assaulted by two athletic women while his idiot security guard stood outside the ring and watched.

After the Bellas' brother and Stephanie McMahon attempted to quell the situation, the security then finally decides to get into the ring to help Springer, who may have really hurt himself.

He is an old man after all. You probably shouldn't be just knocking him down.

At the end of the day, this was just another dull chapter in the story of the Bella Twins, which looks to be going nowhere extremely fast.

NXT tag team match featured on Raw

In an effort to promote the NXT special event this coming Thursday, the WWE featured a tag team match with NXT Champion Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn teaming up against Tyler Breeze and Tyson Kidd.

All four men will vie for the NXT Championship in the main event Thursday.

I liked the fact that the WWE gave these guys a couple of minutes to show their stuff in front of the live audience.

Not only was it a chance to promote the main event of the show Thursday, it was also a nice test for Neville, Zayn and Breeze to see how they would handle themselves in front of an arena full of people on live television.

I thought that all four men in the match worked hard and that Neville, Zayn and Breeze passed their initial test.

Another thing I noticed was how the announcers actually helped get the characters get over during the match instead of cracking jokes and talking about everything else going on the show but the match in the ring.

At the end of the day, they did their job. They called the action in the ring and attempted to get the talent over by giving background on them. If only they could do that for every other match on the show and we may have a competent announcing team.

Adrian Neville got a great reaction from fans

The one guy in the match that was the most over was Neville.

Not only was he over with the fans in the arena after showing off a sample of his great move set, he was also put over by the announcers who routinely called him incredible and referred to him as a guy people have to see.

The crowd came its feet when Neville hit the red arrow for the win, which is incredible to watch no matter how many times you see it.

When he hit the move, I noticed a number of people in the audience say, "Wow!"

Hopefully, this is how the WWE continues to feature some of the newer performers, which is by making them must-see television.

People watch wrestling to see tough guys and incredible feats of athleticism. You would be surprised how many people don't care about fighting bunnies (more on that later) and sophomoric humor.

If someone is going to spend their hard-earned money to come out of the house to see you, or stay in the house and spend three hours of their night watching you from the comfort of their own couch, you have to give them something worth seeing.

I think Neville may be something people would run to their televisions to watch. He's an astounding athlete.

The Miz, Dolph Ziggler segment was pretty funny

While using Jerry Springer makes the WWE look out of touch, the angle between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler from Monday actually made the company look like their up on their current events.

If you haven't heard, a number of celebrities had some of their nude photos leaked last week.

In an effort to capitalize on that, Ziggler showed some leaked photos of The Miz, who fancies himself as a big-time movie star nowadays.

Sure, the photos were kind of silly, especially the one with Damien Sandow spray-tanning The Miz's naked body, but it was still pretty funny and it was current.

I love the fact that Sandow is The Miz's permanent stunt double. I also love the fact that Sandow literally mimics every move The Miz makes now. It's hilarious.

Like I said, it was kind of silly, but I got a couple of chuckles out of it. For once, something the WWE did something where I laughed a little bit.

I usually don't laugh at all.

More bunny shenanigans

The reason why I didn't mention Adam Rose's bunny beating up Heath Slater last week was because I figured it would be one-week thing that would go away be forgotten.

Well, I was very wrong as the damn bunny struck again. This week, it super kicked Slater and then hit a bunny splash from across the ring on Titus O'Neil.

It's crazy to think that the same company that boasts a legit butt-kicking beast as its champion is the same company that has a man in a bunny outfit beating up two of its wrestlers.

It doesn't make any sense. The craziest thing is that the bunny may be more over than Rose himself.