WrestleMania is in the books and now it’s time for the biggest Raw of the year. Daniel Bryan overcame the odds and won the WWE World Heavyweight championship, so maybe the Authority will be nice and finally accept that he’s the face of WWE. The Undertaker’s streak has been broken, so Paul Heyman is sure to gloat about it tonight. Cesaro and Swagger split, so we’ll see the continuation of that tonight. Lotta big stuff seems to be going down tonight, so without any hesitation let’s get to it!

Daniel Bryan comes out to start Raw. Huge Daniel Bryan chant to start off Raw. Says its hard to to the finger point with two titles, but let’s do it anyway! He says two years ago he starting yesing, and it became a movement. But it’s more than just a movement, its about the power that the WWE Universe has.

Triple H comes out. Lawler says how embarrassing it must be for Triple H to lose last night. He says that he won’t enter the ring because he doesn’t want to maim Bryan. He says enjoy the moment, because it won’t last even up to tonight. HHH books himself in a world title match for later tonight. He says he’ll end the yes movement and all of this crap tonight. Relatively simple segment.

Stephanie and Triple H are talking when Batista arrives and asks what’s going on, why does Triple H get a shot tonight. Triple H says he’s not the one who tapped out last night. Orton comes in and says he wants a rematch. Triple H says they’ll both get rematches later. Stephanie puts them in a match with the Usos for the tag team championship later tonight. Triple H says we need to get things together because when we’re on the same page, no one can stop us.

Sheamus, John Cena and Big E vs. The Wyatts: When Cena came out the crowd sang John Cena’s theme to the tune of “John Cena sucks”. Already rivaling last year’s crowd. Lots to tag action back and forth. Sheamus and Rowan traded offense. I think that’s the first time they’ve ever interacted. Sheamus goes for some punches on the corner, but instead of counting the crowd BOOED every time he punched. Alright, this is better than last year’s crowd. Harper is tagged in as well as Cena and lays out Cena as he tags in Wyatt as we go to commercial.

Back from it, Harper is on Cena. Most of the Wyatt family work on him as the crowd is completely not behind him. Cena finally hits a back body drop as he hot tags Sheamus who runs wild on Rowan and Harper. Sheamus goes for the brouge but Wyatt distracts him as he eats a lariat from Harper. Tag to Wyatt but Big E comes in and runs wild.  Big splash and goes for the big ending but Wyatt pushes Big E into Harper who gives him a superkick.

Harper and Rowan clear the ring as Wyatt does the crab walk. Crowd chants “Bray is gonna kill you” as he hits the Sister Abigail and the crowd happily counts to three as the Wyatts pick up the Win. Great match with much of the credit going to the crowd.

Bo Dallas promo. He’s being called up again. Bo-lieve, guys. bo-lieve.

Emma and Santino Marella vs. Fandango and Summer Rae: Fandango was over huge. Tune in next week when he isn’t. Santino brings out the cobra but then Summer Rae and Emma duke it out. Emma puts Summer in the dil-emma and hits a body splash to the corner. Emma lock gets it as Santino cobras Fandango out of the ring. The crowd does Emma’s dance after the match.

Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman arrive. They go to a few shots of people sad and/or booing Lesnar, since you know, he beat The Undertaker last night. They mentioned Undertaker was in the hospital with a concussion but he was released earlier today. Paul Heyman introduces himself and the beast incarnate who broke the streak. Crowd chants bullshit. Heyman says they’re stupid because they told him so. He points out Lesnar shirt that says “eat, sleep, break the streak”. He says that they aren’t here to put smiles on peoples faces (new WWEspeak verbiage) but rather Lesnar is here to put tears in children’s eyes.

Heyman says he wants to shoot from the hip and talks about Undertaker collapsing backstage after the match. He mentions that Vince McMahon himself escorted The Undertaker away from WrestleMania to the hospital in an ambulance. Very weird to mention that. Says that Lesnar was THIS CLOSE to breaking Undertaker’s neck and skull because he would have done anything it took in order to beat the Undertaker. He mentions that this is the wildest crowd of the year, but like the rest of the locker room they’re wannabes because no one respected Lesnar when he beat the Undertaker. They wanted to be the ones who broke the streak. They’ve never fought in the UFC or won the NCAA titles. He lists a bunch of people as the wannabes and says Brock Lesnar is the one in twenty one.

He says there are a bunch of pluralities in the WWE, but there is only one best incarnate, conqueror of the streak, and Brock Lesnar. They then make their exit. Well, it’s true. Lots of talking here but it was great.

My long lost cousin from the Bahamas, Adam Rose, is making his debut soon! We’re all invited to the Exotic Experience bus or something. Good for him.

Usos vs. Orton and Batista for the WWE tag team championships: One of the Usos start on Batista, but he’s quickly isolated. Crowd immediately didn’t care and started to chant CM Punk. When are you people going to get it? They dump the Usos out Oh, a countout. This was just a segment to lay out the Usos. GREAT WAY TO GET THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD OVER.

Batista bomb to one of the Usos on the steps.There are so many other tag teams to do this on and they have to use the tag team champions. WHY. No better illustration of the midcard-main event divide widening than right here. This really pissed me off for some reason. This is also why none of the midcard titles are over or mean shit anymore.

RVD vs. Damien Sandow: RVD tries to do his chant but Sandow keeps cutting him off. Sandow hits his elbow of disdain but RVD comes back with his “hybrid style” as Cole calls it. RVD lays out Sandow on the barricade, finally does his chant, then hits a spinning leg kick to Sandow on the barricade. He does the rolling thunder followed by the frog splash and that’s it. I don’t think his return means all that much, but there might be some fun matches here and there for him.

Rey Mysterio vs. Bad News Barrett: Yes, he’s back to grappling contests. Crowd, who is largely European, loves Barrett. Barrett takes a mic and says he has some bad news, but Mysterio cuts him off and does a sliding splash to the outside on a fallen Barrett. The crowd is totally into Barrett. He hits a spinning side slam, but only a two. Rey does his comeback and hits a DDT for a nearfall.  He hits the 619 and goes for his splash, but Barrett cuts him off and hits the bole hammer elbow for the victory. Glad to see Bad News Barrett over, if only for one week.

Cole promises a big time debut next. Long pause after that, then turns out it’s Russev. Finally. Seems like this is the night where all the major news and debuts happen so we don’t get anymore for months to come. Yay!

We get a look into Adam Rose’s Exotic Express bus. There’s a party going on, you see. A cool party. There’s small people and bunnies inside. Fun!

Alexander Rusev vs. Zack Ryder: About what you would expect. Ryder tries a comeback, but Rusev is too much for him. The European crowd chants USA as Rusev applies the accolade (camel clutch) for the victory.

Cole mentions Rusev just DESTROYED Zack Ryder. Who doesn’t nowadays?

Hall of Fame recap. Congrats to everyone! Not that they’re reading this review but it’s nice to be nice sometimes, whether or not people can see it. There’s a life lesson for everyone.

Ultimate Warrior arrives shaking hands and slowly making his way to the ring. Suddenly, he has the trenchcoat on. Crowd are into him. Warrior says he doesn’t know if he has the words to say anything…then puts on the Warrior mask facepaint and does a rambling speech as the Ultimate Warrior. Basically he tells the crowd to believe in themselves and thanks for believing in the Warrior. I think. Not much to it but it was pretty cool I guess.

A thank you video aired to the fans from WWE. Well you’re welcome, WWE. I might bitch and moan sometimes but it’s sure nice to be thanked! Now I feel bad yelling about the tag team situation from earlier.

AJ and Tamina arrive. Because they’re still a team or something. Didn’t they split up a few weeks ago? They’ve split up multiple times I think, with zero explanation as to why they’re back togther the next week. WWE just thanked me so I’ll be nice here. 295 days, AJ says, she’s been Divas champion and the longest reigning Divas champion of all time.  Last night it was AJ versus the world, and she overcame the odds, but she’s always overcame the odds. People were really big into AJ for some reason. CM Punk chants. Oops. She is the savior of the divas division. Suddenly, new music hits and it’s none other than NXT’s Paige.

People immediately liked Paige as they chanted for her and quickly turned against AJ. AJ asks what the hell is she doing here. Paige congratulated AJ. AJ says everyone should be congratulating her, but she doesn’t need it so go run back to NXT because she doesn’t like being interrupted. Paige says she just wants to congratulate her, geez. AJ seems amused. She challenges Paige to a match, but Paige says she’s not ready. AJ slaps her and asks if she’s ready now. AJ says she’ll face her and put the title on the line. Uh oh.

AJ vs. Paige for the Diva’s championship: AJ mostly dominates, then puts in the black widow, but Paige breaks out of it and hits the Paige turner for the pinfall. Paige is the new Diva’s champion, yep. Huge pop from the crowd. Good for her; let’s see if this revitalizes a stagnant division.

The Andre the Giant battle royal trophy is displayed as Hulk Hogan’s music hits. The crowd go…mild. That was fast. They did get into him quickly, though. “Hulk Cue Card- Smoothie King Center” sign as you know something Hulkamaniacs, we had the biggest WrestleMania of all time last night in the Superdome. His favorite memory from last night was the Andre the Giant battle royal. He introduces Cesaro, who gets a big pop. Coulter is with him. I thought they split up last night?

Hogan congratulates him as he makes his exit. Cesaro begins to speak, but Coulter grabs the microphone and says eight or ten months ago he brought him into the fold, even though he’s not from here, and he became a Zeb Coulter guy. Cesaro interrupts him and says he’s not a Zeb Coulter guy- he’s a Paul Heyman guy. This got a big reaction from the crowd as Heyman arrives.

He says that not only is he the mastermind behind the streak ending, he’s now also the advocate for the king of swing, Cesaro. Coulter asks if he’s really jumping ship. Heyman says look grandpa, he is now the advocate of Cesaro and he will now go and instruct the announcers as to how to properly discuss this news. As Heyman does just that, suddenly Swagger comes in and jumps Cesaro. He takes the trophy and destroys it, quite easily mind. That looked too heavy to break easily. Cesaro strikes back and eliminates him from the ring as they quickly go to commercial.

Cesaro vs. Swagger. Cesaro dominantes quickly but Swagger grabs him from the top rope and slams him down to the floor. Heyman’s holding what is left of the Andre the Giant trophy as the announcers start talking about the Undertaker’s streak. I guess this is sort of relevant considering Heyman’s there, but really? Swagger goes for the Vader bomb but Cesaro counters. Cesaro does the deadlift suplex from the apron to the sky to the floor that’s pretty damn amazing.

Running European uppercut and Cesaro motions for the swing, but Swagger immediately bails and heads up the ramp for a countout. Normally this would be a terrible finish, but it’s fine for now as I guess they’re building towards a match for Extreme Rules, maybe. Cesaro celebrates with what’s left of the trophy as fans sing his song. Weird for him to do a babyface turn then immediately align with the top heel manager. It’s the best possible manager for Cesaro to go with, but people want to cheer him. Interesting to see where that goes.

Kane, Stephanie and the Shield were backstage Ambrose asks where the Outlaws are and Rollins mention that they’ll probably won’t see them around again. Reigns says they’ll make sure of that. Kane went off on them, but Stephanie cut him off shrilly. She told the Shield there was an injustice taking place- the yes movement. She wanted justice to be served. She asked if she made herself clear. Reigns said crystal.

Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H for the WWE World Heavyweight championship: The champion came out first. Why? That was soon answered as Batista and Orton came out and laid him out with their finishers. Kane came out. Kane acted like he was mad, but then chokeslammed Bryan. This brought out Triple H who came out and immediately instructed the ref to ring the bell or he would be fired. The bell rang. Triple H goes Bryan, but suddenly the Shield arrive.

Orton, Batista and Kane get on the apron. The Shield follow suit. The crowd chants “this is awesome”. Triple H tells the Shield to stand down. As he tells the other trio to do the same, he turns around and eats a spear by Reigns. Ends up in a brawl that sends Orton, Batista and Kane to the outside. The Shield circle around Triple H, who then eats a knee strike by Bryan. Kane and the others drag him out as the Shield and Bryan celebrate to close off Raw.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This was a newsworthy, exciting, and overall fun show. There were a few annoying things here and there (mainly just the Usos burial) but other than that I have no problems to report. Bad News Barrett and Alexander Rusev finally made their debuts, and while they’ll probably just be doing squashes in the near future it’s at least moving them forward which is nice. We also got Paige making her debut in shocking fashion so that’s nice to see as well- hope that revitalizes a division that needed something new so badly. There’s also the debuts of Adam Rose and Bo Dallas to look forward to in the coming weeks. Bo’s new heel gimmick I like a lot, so it’s interesting to see where they go at it here in the big stages of WWE. Rose’s gimmick I’m surprised is being called up so quickly, so I guess it’s all due to luck. Funny how he was in developmental as Leo Kruger for years, then all of a sudden gets called up as soon as he changes his gimmick. Good for my new distant cousin!

Lot of storyline development as well. Cesaro, who I guess is now a face, aligning with the definitely heel Paul Heyman is interesting. I want to see how they get that one to work. The Shield have turned on the Authority completely, so it looks like going forward it will be Bryan and the Shield feuding with Triple H, Kane, Batista and Orton. Someone mentioned a War Games match at Extreme Rules, and given the scenario it seems perfect, but I highly doubt it. Raw created a ton of interesting scenarios, so it will be intriguing to see where they go with things.