RAW PREVIEW available at this link.
It’s time for the RAW review. I had high expectations for this RAW as I stated in the preview above. With the likes of Steve Austin, Undertaker, Ric Flair, Brock Lesnar and Shawn Michaels available, WWE had a lot of potential with this show. Anyway, let’s get to it with this review.
Steve Austin opened up the show. Austin talked about being back in Texas and plugged the Stone Cold podcast with Brock Lesnar. He brought out the Undertaker. This was a heavy start to the show to say the least with Austin and Undertaker initially! Undertaker said that he and Lesnar have one last battle to fight. The depths of hell are going to look like the gates of heaven compared to where he’s going to take Lesnar at Hell in a Cell. Loved that line. Brock Lesnar then came out! and Paul Heyman cut a promo. He talked about both Lesnar and Taker wanting revenge at Hell in a Cell. He says that Brock Lesnar will take his revenge upon thee. Undertaker cut him off saying that when you take everything from a man, that man ends up with nothing to lose. Undertaker told Brock to just bring it and Brock walked down to the ring. Paul was pleading with Brock to not go and fight Taker, and Brock eventually walked away. I was kind of upset that he did that considering the intensity of this feud so far. However, this was a solid opening to RAW. As it turns out, that ended up being all we got from Lesnar and Undertaker on this RAW. All of the hype which lead to… nothing.
Our first match was John Cena and the Dudley Boyz vs the New Day. It was announced that John Cena would be doing the US Title Open Challenge at Hell in a Cell which I’m looking forward to. It was also announced that John Cena would be appearing on SportsCentre TUESDAY night rather than on Monday as it was originally promoted. I found it odd that WWE initially announced that John would be appearing on ESPN during the second hour of RAW. Did they just tell they audience to change the channel? The New Day called Texas booty and Kofi talked about beating up Cena and the Dudleyz a few weeks ago. Kofi said that “the New Day kicked their”, but New Day cut him off. Kofi then responded by saying “Hey, we’re the New Day…. ASS!” I thought that was so awesome!
The New Day started to the dominate but D-Von got the hot tag. What’s great about the Dudleyz is that usually a lot of tag teams have one man that takes the heat in the match and there’s the one with the hot tag. Both D-Von and Bubba have great hot tags! Bubba did the most awkward clothesline to Big E which tumbled him out of the ring. Cena did a dive onto Big E on the outside. All of a sudden, Xaiver rolled up D-Von and grabbed the tights for the win! I thought that was a bit of an abrupt ending to the match which I thought was down to a bit of an issue with the timing of the show. However, John Cena and the Dudleyz were able to do the post-match beatdown and put Xaiver through a table. So I guess they just booked it like that but I guess they cut a bit off time from the match to make room for Austin or something. Not a bad six man tag but just awkward in some situations.
Michael Cole announced that Randy Orton was not at the WWE tour in Mexico (also featuring the Undertaker) and was injured which JBL already said was caused by the Wyatts. JBL said that his sources told him that the Wyatts did it. JBL must have some incredible sources to announce the assailants before WWE did! Dean Ambrose said he wasn’t waiting for Sunday and that he was going to challenge the Wyatts tonight
Nikki Bella and Alicia Fox were accompanied by Brie Bella for a Divas tag team match against Sasha Banks and Naomi, who were accompanied by Tamina Snuka. There was something off to me when Alicia and Sasha first locked up and it was mostly due to Alicia. Maybe it’s the size difference, but Alicia looked like she could not lock up to save her life. Nikki then got the heat on Naomi and proceeded to push Naomi up on the ropes with her… derrière. I’m not making it up. She pushed Naomi onto the ropes with her backside. That’s EXACTLY what she did!
Sasha got the hot tag and ran wild. Then, Naomi was tagged back in and did a cross body from the top. However, Nikki was able to do a sneak attack onto Nikki which was apparently had so much impact that it KO’d Sasha for the last minute of the match. She was knocked out with this simple move when just two weeks ago, she was up and at Bayley for 30 minutes in an Iron Man match. I hated this tag team match. Sasha was not that active in the match which really hurt it.
It was announced that “Corporate Kane” was suspended by WWE and would not be here for RAW. Shawn Michaels came down to ring and ate some kid’s pizza! XD He talked about Hell in a Cell and being in the first one. Michaels basically plugged the Hell in a Cell matches this Sunday until Seth Rollins came out. I have no idea why Seth’s hair was so freaking wet! Seth said that Shawn was supposed to introduce Seth Rollins rather than talk about the Hell in a Cell matches. Shawn says he ignores instructions all the time and that he wanted to have a bit of fun with the fans. Shawn said they were having a great time until Seth came out. Seth said that he needed to talk about the champion that was going to stop the show at Hell in a Cell. He said that Shawn needed to talk about Seth Rollins. Shawn said that if he had a nickel for everyone that has been called the new Shawn Michaels, he’d be a billionaire. Shawn said it never occurred to him to be the second coming of anybody. Seth said that Shawn was jealous because Seth’s moment at Wrestlemania 31 eclipsed all of Shawn’s Wrestlemania moments. Seth said he had enough of the conversation and told them to hit his music. They wouldn’t do it. Shawn said that Seth’s got a match next against Ryback and told the music guy to hit HIS music. Seth’s last match with Ryback on RAW actually wasn’t that bad so I had high hopes going into this one.
They had their match. It was an OK match I guess. Seth Rollins hit the pedigree and Seth beat Ryback… CLEAN! What a concept! The WWE World Heavyweight Champion won a match clean! They finally had Seth win a match! As Wrestlezone pointed out on Twitter, Ryback won their last match on RAW a month ago because of Sting. To see Seth actually pick up the clean win here actually works fine.
It was announced that Dean Ambrose would be facing Braun Strowman and Luke Harper in a handicap match on RAW. They replayed Summer Rae dumping Rusev last week on RAW. As you’ll recall, Rusev was mucked around on that show. They also showed Summer Rae screwing Rusev as the special guest referee on SmackDown! and then hitting on Dolph Ziggler. It was then time for a six man tag team match with Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro and Neville against Rusev, Sheamus and King Barrett.
It was a good six man tag team match. Just a shame that the announcers were comparing Rusev to George Clooney and Cesaro to Rodger Federer. NO attention paid to this match at all. Neville went for a tag but Sheamus pushed Ziggler off the apron. However as he did that, Cesaro went off the apron himself without being touched! Cesaro was tagged in and ran wild. A very good hot tag. Then Ziggler did his hot tag. Ziggler hit the Fame-Asser but Barrett sold it poorly to be honest. I just think he fell down a bit too quickly. Neville did the big springboard dive onto the outside to which JBL said that Wayne Rooney would never do that! The finish was Sheamus hitting the Brogue Kick onto Ziggler and Barrett getting the win. There’s a lot of potential with a heel European stable with Rusev, Sheamus and King Barrett if WWE ever went with it. You might as well!
It was announced that Summer Rae and Dolph Ziggler would be on MizTV on SmackDown! Ric Flair came out to the joy of myself! Ric talked about Wrestlemania 32 being in Texas. He announced that it would be Roman Reigns teaming with Dean to take on Luke Harper and Braun Strowman. Roman Reigns came out as Ric called him his “main man.” The Wyatts came out with ERICK ROWMAN being with them but not Luke Harper. Roman called Bray into the ring. Roman said that Bray should be very scared off being locked in Hell in a Cell with him without his crew. All I kept thinking after he said that is, I guarantee that the Wyatt Family will get inside the Cell in someway during the Reigns/Wyatt match!
Seth, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were talking backstage. The Wyatts/Reigns and Ambrose match was now a two on three handicap match. So the match has now been changed twice in one night! Shawn Michaels interrupted Steph, Seth and HHH with Seth with a facial expression of complete disgust towards Shawn Michaels! I loved it! Then the match was changed again when Seth Rollins decided to be Roman and Dean’s partner in a six man tag team match! So I guess it’s the Shield reunited against the Wyatts.
Charlotte took on Brie Bella. Paige was backstage watching on. This match was much better than the tag team divas match from earlier. However, that’s not saying a great deal to be honest. It was very hard care but because the build for this match between Nikki and Charlotte at Hell in a Cell has been so lacklustre. Charlotte won. Renee Young interviewed Paige backstage. Renee asked Paige if she attacked Natalya on SmackDown! and said that she was the prime suspect. Paige claimed that anyone could have had an issue with the Divas Revolution including Alundra Blayze! Renee mentioned that Paige was still not answering her question and Paige told her to get her facts straight.
Kevin Owens was in a non-title match with Mark Henry. The big highlight of the match was Kevin Owens hitting the pop-up powerbomb on Mark Henry! That was impressive. As Michael Cole pointed out, Kevin could easily do that to Ryback if he can do that to Mark Henry. Ryback came out but Kevin wanted to run away. Mark threw Kevin back into the ring and Ryback hit a huge powerbomb to Kevin. It’s nice that they actually did something with this feud.
Seth did a interview with Renee Young backstage and said this six man tag team match was not about reuniting the Shield. It was about proving that he was in fact the man and he was going to show the world just how great he was. They showed another Brock Lesnar/Undertaker hype-up video. They announced for the Hell in a Cell pre-show that it would be a rematch from the six man tag team match earlier as Ziggler, Neville and Cesaro will take on Rusev, Sheamus and Barrett.
Next up was the six man tag team match main event. The fans were already chanting “This is Awesome” before the match started, shades of the match between these two stables at 2014 Elimination Chamber. Rollins and Ambrose were arguing on the apron as Roman started things off. Seth was knocked to the outside and told Dean and Roman “Hey, I already had one match!”
Seth walked out on the match when he “suffered” an injury. The match ended when Dean hit everybody with Kendo Sticks. The Wyatts ganged up on Dean until Roman did the big dive to the group. Roman did spears to Bray and Rowan to end the show. I thought this was a decent main event and good build for Hell in a Cell.
I thought this RAW was better than RAW last week. However, I was expecting a lot more with all the stars that were signed up for this edition of RAW. They could have made better use of Ric and Steve Austin. I was expecting a lot more from Undertaker and Brock Lesnar. I had high expectations for this RAW to be honest. I can’t say this was a bad show but I was expecting a lot more considering this was the go-home show for the PPV.