7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (12 Aug - Results & Review)

Downs…

3. A Near Miss

There is going to be praise for Bronson Reed a bit later, but let’s separate out his match against Miz from the beatdown afterward.

Reed essentially had a reboot last week when he jumped Seth Rollins and laid him out with six Tsunamis, causing internal injuries and essentially writing the former world champion off television for the foreseeable future. It was a bold move with a wrestler who had been stuck in the mud for months, and it worked.

And then WWE sent Bronson out there to go 50/50 with the Miz before catching a crossbody attempt, nailing a Death Valley Driver and finishing with a Tsunami. One can understand they wanted to show that Reed can shrug off Miz’s offense and still flatten the former champ, but he spent a decent portion of the match selling, when he should have simply done what he did when Miz tried to hit the It Kicks and basically laughed them off.

One of the things that prevented Reed from looking like a killer before was this back-and-forth with inferior opponents, and losing matches he shouldn’t have. If WWE wants a fresh start with Bronson, they can’t fall back into the same trappings with his matches.

Thankfully, they redeemed everything with the post-match beating, but it’s worth calling attention to the match itself as a warning.