5 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (10 Aug - Results & Review)
1. Breakker’s Journey Back To Relevance
Last week, this column did not positively rate the Bron Breakker/Oba Femi confrontation, mainly due to Bron being in a completely different time zone career-wise from Oba, with it feeling like pulling him back from Austin Theory’s muscle was too heavy of a lift in one week.
Fast-forward to Monday night, and it’s safe to say that WWE has managed it surprisingly well.
Breakker spent much of Raw in a pensive state, seemingly questioning his lot in life. During a backstage interview segment with The Vision, Bron stared off into space while Theory and Maxxine Dupri made kissy faces with each other, and Logan Paul ran his mouth. He might as well have donned a sign reading, “How did I get stuck with these losers?”
In fact, when they left, Breakker asked Byron Saxton about what he thought about Femi, and whether he thought Oba was the future of WWE. He couldn’t care less about his stablemates or their situation, which carried over to Theory’s match against Akira Tozawa. Bron only came to life when the opportunity presented itself for him to attack Tozawa, but Oba emerged to confront him. Officials separated the two while fans went nuts, which provided proof of concept.
Later, Breakker approached Paul Heyman backstage and continued his insecurity tour, asking the Oracle whether he thought Oba was the future of WWE. Heyman tap-danced around the question, finally settling on saying he respected Femi and would continue to do so until Bron changed his mind.
Breakker’s quiet moodiness showed that this was more of an internal struggle with being lapped by the newcomer, seeing his status as the Next Big Thing transferred to Femi while he was mired in a go-nowhere stable being dominated by a goof and his girlfriend. Bron’s disgust registered through the screen without the announcers having to hammer the point home, which qualifies as subtle storytelling for WWE.
Job well done.