Tonight’s Raw will have to do it’s very best to gauge my interest. Considering how the summer’s gone thus far, that will be extremely hard. Especially after news is going around that Daniel Bryan’s vacating the title tonight. Which is a great ending to a year of playing the “Hope WWE doesn’t bury Daniel Bryan” game which I’m kind of tired of playing as it is. Oh, and did I mention that it’s E3 week and the Sony press conference is going on at the same time as Raw? Yeah, it’s a battle of my interests and yours tonight here on Monday Night Raw.
The Authority make their way to the ring, all smiles. They talk about the WWE title situation, which has been going on for months. They have Dr. Joe Maroon come on the screen. He should not return to action this month, but will be re-evaluated in the coming weeks. Triple H says at the end of the day, Daniel Bryan can’t defend his title. Stephanie says she is officially stripping him of the WWE title. The crowd didn’t like this. Stephanie reiterated the story between Daniel Bryan and herself, including Brie Bella who ended up quitting for nothing. Nice way to make them look like dorks, again.
Stephanie mentions the Money in the Bank match will now be for the WWE championship. Randy Orton is entered because he deserves it. Triple H guarantees that a new WWE World Heavyweight champion at Money in the Bank. Triple H says it’s funny how everyone was ready to stick it to them when they were “proven wrong” at Wrestlemania but in the end, they were right.
Triple H moves on to Seth Rollins. A video plays what happened last week on Raw. Triple H makes a six man tag involving Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose takes on The Wyatt Family. Triple H says it’ll be tough finding a partner so it’s basically a handicap match. Cole ponders if they’ll find a partner. Yes, it will be Big Show (ok, it wasn’t, but close enough).
You can tell how they’ve rewritten this show as Daniel Bryan was scheduled for Raw tonight. Hmm.
Sheamus vs. Wade Barrett in a Money in the Bank qualifying match: REMATCHAPALOOZA~! Bad News Barrett says that once he climbs the top of that ladder and wins the title, he is never, ever coming back down. They had their usual match. Crowd is really hot right now. I wonder how long that will last. Sheamus goes for a crossbody off the top rope, but Barrett moves and Sheamus collides into the barricade. Wasteland doesn’t get it. Bull hammer time but Sheamus hits White Noise for a nearfall. Sheamus went for a shoulder tackle but Barrett headbutted him. That’s new. Brouge Kick OUTTA NOWHERE~!!!!! For the three count. If there are finishes I don’t need to see in WWE, maybe even more than the DQ for kicking too much ass finish, is the FINSHER OUTTA NOWHERE!@!@! finish. Got really good towards the end though.
To reiterate, Randy Orton, Alberto del Rio, and now Sheamus have qualified for Money in the Bank.
Wyatts interrupt. Luke Harper says they get urges from a deep dark place. The urges, Wyatt says, but a true measure of a man is to learn how to control them. Wyatt says he’s a man reborn and the urges cannot be satisfied.
Lana comes out. Calls Obama a SISSY. That’s not nice. Shows a video of Obama working out with tiny dumbbells. They then post the picture of Putin. He’s strong, you see. They show pictures of him doing karate and riding on a horse shirtless. Now that the frailty of our President has been revealed, she says, the new superpower will soon be Russia. Justin Roberts introduces Rusev.
Rusev vs. Zack Ryder: Ryder wins in a 60 minute epic. LOL right, he loses in like a minute to the Accolade. A big flag of Russia comes out as Rusev celebrates.
Curtis Axel and Ryback vs. Goldust and…R-Truth: Cody Rhodes is picking really lame tag team partners. Seemed like they were going 100 miles a minute. Goldust did a great comeback. R-Truth gets dumped. Ryback wins with a rollup. Please go somewhere with this.
Layla is backstage, and says people in Minnesota are so uncultured. She makes sure to mention that Summer Rae is from here. Summer Rae comes into the shot and pours milk over Layla and beats her up, so that’s still a thing.
3MB come out for a promo. They said Shield was supposed to be here, but too bad. Suddenly the Shield’s music hits, they come to the ring, and they destroy 3MB. Ambrose gets the mic. He cuts a great promo running down Seth Rollins, ready to re-arrance his face, and says the time will soon come. Seth Rollins is seen backstage in a suit. Reigns says you never stab a brother in the back. He’s just one problem, though. Orton and HHH are also the problem. Reigns says when he gets his hands on Orton he’s going to be the ass of the company. Then he’s gonna get to Triple H, and when that time comes, they’re going to have their own Game of Thrones. This was awesome.
Fandango and Damien Sandow vs. The Usos: Damien Sandow is doing an interpretive dance. I think the thing that annoys me the most about this Damien Sandow gimmick is that there’s no real reason for him to do it. He’s just doing it. For no reason. It’s so annoying. Usos win after a bunch of comedy spots.
Need a gif of Damien twirling the ribbon while one guy claps.
Xavier Woods vs. Bo Dallas: Ran down Daniel Bryan and said all he had to do was Bo-lieve. Bo wins in a short, uninteresting match. Does his lap and his shtick after.
RVD vs. Cesaro: REMATCHAPLAZOOZA~! Paul Heyman was already in the ring back from commercial and started talking about Undertaker’s streak. Introduces Cesaro. They had a long match. Look, Cesaro is great, but him working with RVD 10,000 times isn’t going to be interesting no matter what. Cesaro did do a cool uppercut counter from a rolling thunder attempt, though. Cesaro wins with the neutraliser, so he advances into the Money in the Bank match.
They show a picture of Randy Orton not being there, as he’s on a vacation. That’s pretty awesome, actually.
Michael Cole came out with chairs. He introduced Seth Rollins, who came out with new music and a suit. Yousold out chants. He doesn’t understand what everyone’s so mad about. It wasn’t news to him. It’s about what’s best for business- his business. He calls Ambrose a lunatic. Reigns is a golden boy that, without someone to harness him, it’s useless. He talks about how they beat Evolution. He had to learn how to adapt. More you sold out chants. He bought in. He bought in the evolution of Seth Rollins.
He took a lot of guts to do what he did last week. But everyone’s fixated on how he stabbed people in the back. To him, they were just business partners. And he severed a business relationship. For two years, he always said believe in the shield. But what he always meant was believe in Seth Rollins.
Ambrose and Reigns come out, but Harper and Rowan come in and attack. Rollins gets in and the Shield corners him, but Bray Wyatt come in. John Cena, bad eye and all, come running in and looks like they have a partner for later tonight.
Seth Rollins will take on his new match partner Dolph Ziggler in their 3 out of 500 series tomorrow. REMATCHAPALOOZA~!
Paige vs. Alicia Fox: REMATCHAPALOOZA~! Aksana is out there with Alicia because I dunno. Paige won in a usual match after Aksana’s interference backfired. Alicia goes crazy after and lays out Aksana. Alicia went crazy after and laid out Aksana in water and popcorn. Because this is far more important and interesting to get over than Paige, the champion you just debuted.
Jack Swagger vs. Santino Marella: Zeb had a “deport Santino” sign. Short match. Santino was getting the better as Jack bails. Zeb slaps him, which gets the job done as he re-enters the ring and quickly lays out Santino with the gutwrench powerbomb for the pinfall.
Cody is backstage with Goldust. Cody says he has another partner, but next week it won’t be Kofi, Sin Cara, or any of those geeks. Instead, it will be someone that will magnify the magnificence of Goldust. I’m calling this right now- I firmly believe it will be Cody in a new getup/outfit. Codust.
Stephanie and Triple H are backstage. Stephanie says she can’t get over what happened last week with John Cena. Why is he getting himself involved with the Shield? Triple H says don’t worry, there won’t be a Shield after tonight. Vickie Guerrero suddenly comes in. She has champagne and wine bottles, and wants to celebrate because there’s no more Brad Maddox or Daniel Bryan. She sneezes all over Triple H and Stephanie. Stephanie angrily tells her to get lost. What a geek.
John Cena and The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family. Cole keeps mentioning on commentary that Wyatt is “reborn”. What does this mean? What is the significance of it? Ambrose is the main guy being worked on in this match. Feel like that’s gonna be a common theme until Ambrose and Reigns go their separate ways. They then work on Cena forever. Finally Reigns gets a hot tag. Harper works on Reigns for a bit, but Reigns nails him with the spear and that’s it! Cena and the Shield celebrate, with Triple H and Seth Rollins looking on in a monitor backstage to close the show.
Final Thoughts:
This was better than most Raws as of late. Again, there’s the trend of too many rematches and a lot of stuff just isn’t resonating or creating a lot of interest. But the main storylines of the Money in the Bank match, as well as the Shield breakup and Seth Rollins’ heel turn made this Raw more interesting than usual. Still a while to go until Money in the Bank, so we’ll have to see what else will transpire in the coming weeks leading to the show.
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