Payback is in the books! It was a good PPV filled with tons of action. We now move on to Raw, where there will probably be a bunch of rematches. And I’ve been tipped off there’s going to be tons of Kane tonight. My favorite wrestler! After a month of being negative on the product, I’ll try really hard to like Raw tonight despite all these pesky red flags appearing before the show starts. New feuds will maybe be hinted at tonight, yay!
Raw starts with Evolution coming out. Triple H says they all think this is over, but it’s not. It’s not over until the Shield no longer exists, and that happens tonight. Batista says no more, however. He wants a title match against Daniel Bryan. Triple H says look at the bigger picture, and there is a plan. Batista says he doesn’t care. He wants a title match and he wants it tonight. Triple H mentions Daniel Bryan’s injury and says even if he wanted to give him a title shot tonight, he’d probably flake out. Triple H says no one is getting anything until the Shield is over with. Batista says he understands, then quits. Well that’s that.
Rob Van Dam and Sheamus vs. Cesaro and Bad News Barrett: I don’t think this is a rematch, so it won’t get the name. They had a very basic match, nothing interesting because I’ve seen these four have matches with each other for ages now. RVD pins Barrett with the frog splash, so they’re going to have more matches. Golly, off to a great start here on Monday Night Raw!
Most watched shows on last week on WWE Network. NXT Takeover was ranked above Legends House. No matter what happens on this show tonight, faith in humanity is restored.
Lance Stephenson comes out. You all know who that is, right, since everyone watches basketball? It’s Damien Sandow. You know, the “let’s have him dress up as people” gimmick is the epitome of lazy WWE booking. Sandow has a great character. Why does he have to be doing this? He called LeBron James the greatest basketball player ever and pretty much insulted the Pacers, since they are in Indiana. Boring. This brings out Big Show. Boring. He beat up Sandow, then dunked the ball in the basket. Boring. Great productive segment.
Kofi Kingston vs. Bo Dallas: Well, technically this isn’t a rematch because there wasn’t a match to begin with. So that word is foiled again. Until the next segment, anyway. They had a match. That’s the best way to describe the match in general, really. Fans chanted bo-ring, which was kind of funny. One bodog later and that’s it. I’m surprised that finisher name hasn’t been changed yet.
Renee is in the back looking to interview Triple H, but gets Stephanie instead. She says she has a scoop and it regards the World Heavyweight Championship. UH OH.
She makes her way to the ring. No smiles tonight as it was slapped outta her last night. She says that Daniel Bryan was selfish and showed his true colors last night. He didn’t surrender the WWE World Heavyweight championship. She gave them chance after chance, and all she got was a slap in the face in return. But she’s tough. She announces Kane vs. Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank in a stretcher match. I can hear those mouses clicking to WWE.com right now to order the Network. She says if Daniel Bryan can’t compete, the Money in the Bank ladder match will be for the vacated WWE championship. She talks some more about Daniel Bryan, but suddenly John Cena comes out.
John Cena starts talking about how he loves hearing the reaction of the WWE Universe. The crowd chants CM Punk and Let’s Go Cena/Cena Sucks. He starts talking about his 14 WWE title reigns. That is a ridiculous amount of titles. No one person is above the championship, including Stephanie. Face it, Daniel Bryan is good. At the end of the day, its about proving it in the ring. And Daniel Bryan proves every time that he’s championship material. The reason he gave up the title when he was injured because he wanted it back.
Lots and lots of talking. Stephanie keeps mentioning how Daniel Bryan is injured hence why he’s a B+ player. Cena basically says she’s made a mockery of the championship, wasted everyone’s time with their bullshit and with a job evaluation he’d give her a zero, meaning she sucks. She makes a match with Cena against Kane right now. YAY!!!
Kane vs. John Cena: This is total WWEspeak central but referring Kane as “THE DEMON KANE” is fucking stupid. Sorry. No one talks like that. They had a boring match. Shitty DQ for kicking too much ass finish. Kane then destroyed him for a bit, but John Cena rallied back and threw some stairs into him. I’m so scared for Daniel Bryan. Oh no. Kane then threw stuff around after because he is a MONSTER who loses all his matches.
Interview with Orton. He and HHH are 100% in cohesion and he has a match with Roman Reigns tonight.
Los Matadores vs Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre: REMATCHAPALOOZA~! Here we go. 3MB comes out and introduces Hornswoggle, who is now sporting an afro. I’m having so much fun here in the WWE Universe. Torito took it off. Hornswoggle ran around clutching his head. Slater gets rolled up. Torito wears the wig to mock Hornswoggle, so they’re going to feud more and more more more more more AND MORE. Ha ha ha, they’re just having fun out there~!
Dolph Ziggler vs. Alberto Del Rio in a winner gets to lose in the Money in the Bank match qualifier tonight.
Alicia Fox and Aksana vs. Nikki Bella: Not that long of a match. Alicia wins with her scissors kick. She and Aksana lay out Nikki after, including throwing her into the barricade.
Bray Wyatt’s chair appeared. Harper and Rowan appear. They say tonight they’ll seek retribution. They will suffer for their misdeeds. They will burn. I guess they’re referring to the Usos.
Jack Swagger vs. Adam Rose: REMATCHAPALOOZA! Rose was over here more than in recent weeks in the US. Not very long or interesting. Rose wins with his modified forward DDT.
Usos interview. They cut a fun promo on Harper and Rowan. This was the best thing on the show thus far.
Harper and Rowan vs. The Usos: Wyatt is nowhere to be seen. This was a long, great match. The crowd, who were turned off by this boring ass show, suddenly woke up and it became pretty great. Lots of high flying stuff from the Usos and Harper was great. It’s so weird to see a guy his size do a suicide dive. Rowan picks up the win for the team with a uranage. If there’s one thing on Raw to watch tonight, it’s this match.
REMATCHAPALOOZA~! Continues tomorrow on Main Event as RVD takes on Bad New Barrett for the IC title.
Dolph Ziggler vs. Alberto Del Rio: for the ten millionth time. Not the word because they haven’t done it lately. The tag match previously deserves it, but that was a great match so it gets skipped…once. Out of the goodness of my heart. People were behind Ziggler despite months of burials. The match was more heated than usual. Ziggler taps out of the armbar, because people cannot have what they want. Really, really amazing. I get what people say about Ziggler, I really do. But Ziggler is one of the few people that get a reaction here. And you put him over ALBERTO DEL RIO. Just so detrimental.
Goldust comes out for a tag match against Rybaxel. Cody handpicked his tag team partner. It was Sin Cara. What a crappy tag team partner to pick.
Goldust and Sin Cara vs. Rybaxel: Fine for what it was. Cody was looking in the monitor, distressed. Sin Cara nearly had it won as he went to the top for the senton, but missed it and Axel counters with a cutter to score the pinfall. Cody looked sad after the match. What is this building up to?
Lana’s lovely legs make an appearance. She talks about Edward Snowden and how he was able to use his first amendment rights…in Russia. Praises Putin. Introduces Rusev, who comes out in a suit? What? He does not look like a Bulgarian Brute in a suit and with his hair tied back. He’s waving the Russian flag. The Russian Federation are here to recognize him, apparently. They give him a medal. The Russian national anthem plays. That was the ENTIRE SEGMENT. What on earth was the point of this if there was no run in? Incredibly baffling.
Bray Wyatt returns on Smackdown. Ok?
The Shield come out at 7:59 to cut promos. Well, ok. Ambrose says that they feel fine. Rollins says that in the end, they were just three strangers who stood at the same side of the ring. Reigns says the men standing in this ring are brothers. This is Evolution, this is the Shield. He calls out Orton to break his jaw.
Triple H already has the sledgehammer, so I don’t expect this to be much of a match. Rollins gets a chair to even things up. Triple H says last night was plan A, tonight is plan B. Rollins suddenly blindsides Reigns with a chair shot. Ambrose, stunned, gets pummeled with the chair too. Rollins curb stomps Ambrose with the chair. Orton comes in and destroys Reigns. Orton, HHH and Rollins stand tall as what remains of the Shield are left lying to close the show.
Final Thoughts:
This was three long ass hours of a frightfully boring product. I mean, there was absolutely NOTHING going on, save for a great tag team match I would rate at ***1/2. Watch that match and skip the rest as you’re missing literally nothing else. Then in the final few minutes, we finally got an angle that FELT IMPORTANT. What a shock that was after 120 minutes of filler. What they do with what’s left of the Shield now is very interesting. Do they go at it as a duo or will someone come to add to the fray?
It certainly freshens up things as the last thing I wanted to see was Evolution vs. The Shield again, but at the same time you’re also breaking up one of the best things going in WWE right now. It’s pretty sad, but at the same time I think it was time too. After pinning Triple H twice, what more can you do as a stable? It was time for a change, and I think it was the right time. Not a lot of people will agree with me on that, but we’ll see.
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