Last night’s Raw was all about pushing storylines heading into Battleground, but it was a rivalry that we won’t be seeing on pay-per-view that absolutely stole the show for the second week in a row. Let’s take a look at what went down.
PUSH CESARO… NOW.
In what has become the best part of Raw week in and week out, John Cena defended his United States title in the U.S. Open Challenge. Kevin Owens, super angry after losing his NXT title to Finn Balor over the weekend, came out and decided he wanted to take the U.S. Title from Cena tonight instead of at Battleground.
Not so fast KO. Cesaro comes out and says that Owens cost him the title last week, so he wants a rematch this week and Owens better get out of the ring. So Owens… does? Well then.
KO exits and we get a Cena-Cesaro rematch that couldn’t possibly top last week’s instant classic… could it?
SPOILER: HELL YES IT COULD AND DID.
I’m not going to waste your time here, we all know that Cena isn’t losing one of these matches anytime soon, and he pulled off yet another win. The result is not what matters here. What matters is that Cesaro and Cena put on an all-time great match… FOR FREE ON MONDAY NIGHT RAW. Oh, and Cesaro has officially arrived.
Let’s illustrate my point with some awesome GIFs.
As always, Cesaro shows some incredible strength right here, basically dead-lifting Cena into a suplex. But can he get airborn?
Why yes, yes he can. Cesaro hits a 360 uppercut off the second rope because he’s amazing. Not to be outshined, Cena threw in some moves that we haven’t seen out of him in years, including this hurricurana out of nowhere.
Quietly, Cena has been having what is probably the best-in ring year of his career. If you made a top 10 of 2015 match list right now, Cena would probably be involved in six of them. He’s gone away from the Five Moves of Doom and added some great moves into his matches like this reversal.
Speaking of reversals, Cesaro had a ton of them in this match. Cena tries to hit the Attitude Adjustment and Cesaro is like NOPE, reversing it into this DDT.
Cena goes for a U Can’t See Me, and Cesaro reverses it as well. But not by rolling out of the way, no he turns it into a Crossface submission out of nowhere.
After an amazing 30 minute main event that saw both men give it their all and put on a show, Cena was finally able to put Cesaro away. All it took was an AA off the top rope to keep the Swiss Superman down.
What. A. Freaking. Match.
In today’s age of overreactions and labels, it’s simple to brush off people that might call this an all-time great match, but don’t. If you didn’t watch this thing, go find it online and watch because Cesaro and Cena put on an absolute classic last night.
It’s well-documented that Vince McMahon has hesitated pushing Cesaro because he doesn’t feel the Swiss Superman has the personality to connect with the audience, but sometimes all you need is the wrestling. Cesaro is unbelievably over right now after what he’s done the past two weeks. The fans are behind him and the man deserves a push into the main event scene. There are pretty much zero wrestlers on the roster that Cesaro couldn’t put a great match on with, and it’s time to recognize the man.
Credit must be given where it is due on the other side as well. Cena is having an incredible year in the ring. The man just puts on classics at this point and it’s incredible that people still think he isn’t one of the best wrestlers in the company today. And while he may not actually be losing the matches, Cena is putting guys over every single week with this U.S. Title Open Challenge. Great work from the Champ.
Brock Lesnar, Still Great at Destroying Stuff
We kick things off with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman coming out to the ring to address the beatdown the Beast took last week at the hands of the Authority.
Heyman introduces himself as the Advocate off the mayor of Suplex City and says Brock Lesnar is the God of violent retribution. Simply put, Rollins and any of his crew will be decimated by Lesnar and then Heyman backs up this point by discussing wha tLesnar has done to John Cena, the Undertaker and Roman Reigns.
Heyman says there’s one difference, and that is that Lesnar didn’t have any disrespect for those three. In this case, he harbors quite a bit of disrespect for Rollins, and now Brock really really really wants his revenge. Heyman says that Lesnar will massacre Rollins at Battleground and take back his title in a couple of weeks, but the beatings and suplexes start tonight! Heyman promises that Lesnar isn’t going anywhere until he gets his hands on Rollins.
Side note: Kane is on vactaion in ‘Hawaii’ tonight, so all Rollins has to back him up is J&J Security.
Backstage we see Triple H on the phone when Seth and J&J Security walk in. Seth and Trips have a heart-to-heart about the Lesnar situation and Hunter gives Rollins the following advice: walk out of Battleground the Champ. Okay then.
HHH tells Rollins he should call out Lesnar and show him why he’s the man, which almost definitely will end badly for the Champ.
Later, Rollins comes out and J&J rolls out in a new Cadillac. All three men are walking around with axe handles for back-up. Of note, they only have the handles, not the actual axes, this will be important in about three minutes.
Rollins says the Authority wants to prove that he is the undisputed future of WWE and that’s why they booked Rollins/Lesnar at Battleground (well that and stagnating TV ratings) and he’s already proven that multiple times. Rollins says at Battleground he’s going to burn Suplex City to the ground.
The Champ then goes absolutely insane for a few seconds and asks Lesnar if he’s the Beast everyone thinks he is or if he’s just Paul Heyman’s bitch.
Uh oh.
Out comes a pretty angry Lesnar and he starts going towards the ring before changing his mind. Lesnar calls Heyman over, and Paul brings a crate to him. Inside that crate? Axes. Like literal axes, not just handles, axes. So of course Lesnar takes out two of them.
Yeah this is not going to end well for that poor Cadillac.
Lesnar begins to hack away at the Caddi with the axes. Seriously, this is not a joke, he’s swinging the axe wildly at the car.
Yeah, that’s totally not dangerous for the crowd AT ALL. Something tells me Lesnar doesn’t really care though.
Point proven right? WRONG!
Lesnar isn’t close to being done destroying the car.
Obligatory glass shattering before…
HE JUST RIPPED THE FREAKING DOOR OFF OF A CAR! AND MADE IT LOOK LIKE IT TOOK ZERO EFFORT!
Seriously Seth, you had to piss Lesnar off didn’t you?
For some reason, J&J Security decide to go defend the car’s honor and well, it doesn’t work out too well for them.
Poor Jamie Noble gets the worst of it this time, adding broken arms to his broken ribs from a couple of weeks ago.
With J&J Security now dead or something, Lesnar rushes the ring to get his hands on Rollins but the Champ escapes through the crowd. I guess we’ll have to wait another week to see Lesnar literally murder Rollins on live television.
Brock is an animal.
Other Results:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – Somehow, the Rusev/Summer Rae/Dolph Ziggler/Lana storyline is still alive and kicking as we enter week 17 of this love triangle. Rusev and Summer Rae hit the ring and Rusev says he won’t apologize for wasting a year with Lana and then talks trash on Ziggler before Summer grabs the mic and yells at the crowd for chanting ‘USA!’ at the Bulgarian Brute.
Oh hey, it’s Ziggler and Lana! They come out and Ziggler says Lana gave Rusev all his opportunity and now she’s his and they kiss and then everyone starts screaming in the ring. Lana and Summer start yelling at each other and someone might have said ‘OH NO YOU DIDN’T’ because the heels are coming off. Seriously.
While everyone preps for the cat fight, Rusev attacks Ziggler with his crutch and then NAILS him with a kick to the face with his walking boot.
How did he do that on a broken foot?! Oh, it’s not broken. Rusev takes off the boot and shows that his foot is healed. He beats Ziggler down some more and chokes him with his crutch before leaving. So maybe this feud will die now that Rusev and Ziggler can finally wrestle.
Or maybe it will go on for 3 more months because WWE Creative.
RKO OUTTA NOWHERE! – WWE decided to kill two birds with one stone by having the Roman Reigns-Sheamus rematch push two different storylines. Reigns and Sheamus have a pretty great, physical match that looked exhausting for both men, as evidenced by this sort-of maybe Superman punch.
Bray Wyatt eventually comes out and Reigns attacks him, only to find out it’s an impostor in a wig. The real Wyatt shows up and does his whole “Anyone But You” spiel and Sheamus ends up winning by count-out.
Sheamus celebrates when A WILD RANDY ORTON APPEARS!
Orton makes his return and you know how this one is going to end folks.
R-K-OH YEAHHHHH!
Dean Ambrose Needs Some Direction – Bo Dallas comes out reminds kids that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people like Bo Dallas. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BO-LIEVE!
Dallas then has a whatever match with Dean Ambrose that sees Ambrose pick up the win with Dirty Deeds. Seriously this was just a waste of time, Ambrose deserves to be in a better feud and it’s amazing that he can go from fighting Rollins for the title for two months to WWE Creative having nothing for him.
Whatever.
At least we got to see Bo take some victory laps.
New Day Comes Back From the Dead – After dying in Japan at the Beast in the East special thanks to Brock Lesnar, the New Day somehow made a miraculous comeback and was actually feeling pretty good last night.
They whipped, they Nae-Nae’d, they picked up a win over the Lucha Dragons, who apparently are now jobbing two months after debuting as the next big thing in tag team.
Intercontinental Boredom – Tell me if this sounds familiar: Big Show and Ryback face off for the 73rd time this month, Miz interferes and then gets beaten down. At least this time Big Show gave us a flying giant during the match.
Is it just me, or does the Intercontinental title feel less important than the Divas title at this point?
King Barrett vs. R-Truth, Take 34 – King Barrett and R-Truth do battle again because apparently they are contractually obligated to only wrestle each other. How does this one end?
Yeah.
Bellas Get the Best of Paige – Apparently Alicia Fox is officially a Bella now. Brie gets the win in an okay match after Nikkie and Alicia distract Paige like 46 times. After the match, the trio beats the anti-Diva down. If this isn’t leading to NXT Divas being called up and teaming them with Paige then I don’t know what WWE is doing.
H/T Wrestling Giffer