If you told me before Monday night that the major story on Raw was going to be about Stephanie McMahon ordering Mick Foley to find a member of the roster to fire, I would’ve absolutely dreaded the show. Authority angles are usually not good, especially between those two. However, they both took over many segments of the show including the main event and in hindsight, it was well executed. It was, dare I say, good. How did WWE get something like this right?
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A couple of aspects of the Mick Foley firing angle will be explored in this edition of Raw’s botches, slip ups, and outrageous moments, but there’s plenty more to roast. Bayley totally missed a kick in her match, T.J. Perkins showed way more skin than should be allowed on a family program, and Big E made a funny in the background of a serious moment with Mick Foley. There are plenty of GIFs in this article that you likely missed, even if you watched the show.
So without further delay, here are the 5 botchiest and most outrageous moments from this episode of Monday Night Raw.
#5 Big E is totally not taking this seriously
The main story of Raw revolved around Stephanie McMahon wanting Mick Foley to fire a weak member of the Raw roster. Mick didn’t want to do that and before he came out to announce his decision, he made his walk of shame to ring.
Random staffers and wrestlers littered the hallway, including New Day. Big E obviously loves the camera. He took over this incredibly brief serious moment and showed the world his bare chest. It didn’t fit in with Foley’s tone but at least it was a funny easter egg.
4 Fistful of tights
It’s not unheard of for a heel wrestler to grab a handful of tights during a pinfall but this was more than many of us wanted to see. Tony Nese rolled up T.J. Perkins in this tag team match, showing off quite a lot of the inaugural Cruiserweight Champion’s butt cheek.
It likely depends on your impression of TJP if you agree with me on whether this was an unwanted slip-up or not. Surely there are fans with pinups of this master of the dab on their walls that liked the view. To each their own, I guess.
3. Rough landing for Daivari
Austin Aries is back in action and so far it’s all been great. He’s on a direct path towards Neville and the Cruiserweight Championship at WrestleMania. What he needs until then are some quality guys to throw around and that’s just what he did on Monday night.
Poor Ariya Daivari. After this shinbreaker, Aries suplexed him right onto his head. Ouch. Aries went on for the win and as far as we’re aware, Ariya’s head is okay.
2. Whiffed kick
It’s probably better that Bayley did whiff this kick to Nia Jax’s head because the alternative would be actually to punt kick her in the skull. This was so noticeably off that even Corey Graves felt the need to comment on this miss. He immediately remarked how Bayley was “kicking wildly, trying to create some space.”
Even though this was a minor botch, Bayley’s momentum is likely the bigger botch at the moment. She was beaten so bad by Nia Jax that the ref had to stop the match and this is one week after she tapped out to Sasha Banks clean in a one on one match. Bayley does not feel like a champion right now at all.
1. Can he do that?
I’m not going to lie before Mick Foley mentioned the name of who he was going to fire, I would’ve bet money that he was going to say his own name. However, Mick Foley decided to finally regrow a set and told Stephanie that he chose to fire her instead. This was an outrageously crowd-pleasing call.
To answer the question posed in the title of this entry: No, Mick Foley could not do that. He had to verbally spar with Stephanie as well as her cerebral assassin of a husband. To be fair, WWE let Mick look really good in this segment and he even got to give Hunter the Mandible Claw via Mr Socko.
Mick Foley may have had a mostly lacklustre run in his authority role on Raw but in his final moments in the position, he went out with a bang. Or better yet, a Bang! Bang!
