Following an incredibly eventful Battleground, there were tons of questions to be answered on last night’s Raw. Mainly, would the Undertaker be in the building, and would Brock Lesnar seek retribution for the Dead Man’s actions Sunday night. Luckily for us, the answer to both questions was a resounding yes. Let’s take a look at what went down.
Taker-Lesnar is Officially On
We start things out with the Dead Man kicking off Raw by telling us all exactly why he returned at Battleground and targeted Brock Lesnar. Taker says that he is here and he is a relentless, remorseless, vengeful grim reaper. He says streaks are made to be broken, but Lesnar and Paul Heyman had to constantly remind everyone week after week about his Wrestlemania win, and enough is enough. Cue serious Taker face.
Taker says that last night was his true resurrection (is the Dead Man back long-term?!?!) and you can’t kill what won’t die. The Dead Man will challenge Lesnar’s mortality and conquer what has yet to be conquered.
In short, Brock Lesnar will rest in peace.
Backstage we see Triple H and Stephanie McMahon celebrating how great Taker-Lesnar is going to be at SummerSlam, but they agree that Lesnar and Heyman need to stay away from Raw. Later, they see Heyman backstage and he tells the Authority that the Beast isn’t here tonight.
Shockingly, Trips and Steph don’t believe Heyman so they enlist the entire roster to serve as security and make sure Taker and Lesnar don’t kill each other tonight. The Authority makes it clear that they aren’t requesting so, they are demanding it.
Heyman makes his way out to the ring and does what he does best, incites the Undertaker. Heyman repeats that his client conquered the Undertaker’s streak about 25 times just to anger Taker and then says it is Lesnar’s greatest accomplishment. After repeating the line a few more times, Heyman says that the Undetaker belongs to Brock Lesnar!
Big mistake Paul…. GONG!
The lights go out and come back on and Taker is standing behind Heyman. The walrus begs for Takers mercy before BROCK LESNAR COMES FLYING TO THE RING AND IT’S ABOUT TO GO DOWN!
Taker and Lesnar start brawling as Triple H runs out and calls for his security team. Yeah that’s not going to work. Taker and Brock destroy security then go back to destroying each other before the entire locker room (minus Cena because come on fam) comes out to separate the two. For their parts, the Dead Man and the Beast start fighting the other wrestlers just to get a chance at murdering each other.
It’s pure chaos in the ring right now as Lesnar keeps breaking free and restarting the brawl before the two are FINALLY separated. Lesnar screams that he’s going to kill the Undertaker, who responds Lesnar’s going to have to to stop him.
Backstage now and Lesnar is walking when he spots Taker and guess what? THE BRAWL IS BACK ON!
Eventually they are separated and Lesnar is cuffed by security, which finally puts an end to the brawling.
Seriously, one night in and I love this rivalry. Great work by WWE making this thing as personal and old school as possible. Forget telling a story, let Heyman talk and let Taker-Lesnar beat the hell out of each other, that’s more than enough.
Is it SummerSlam yet?
Other Results:
Attitude Adjustment, Cesaro Swing, RK-Oh My! – Our main event of the night pitted John Cena, Cesaro and Randy Orton against Rusev, Kevin Owens and Sheamus. Things didn’t exactly go well for the heels. Sheamus bailed on the match after Owens inadvertently knocked him off of the apron. Then Owens got into an argument with Rusev that ended like this.
This led to one of the funner end of match sequences we’ve seen in a while. First Rusev ate an Attitude Adjustment from Cena…
…which led to a Cesaro Swing…
… and ended in an awesome RKO.
If you’re going to have the faces go over, that’s how you do it. Great finish and the crowd ate it up. Orton’s RKO especially is just so over with everyone, and he sells it so damn well. Amazing that we’ve seen it for a decade and still get hyped every time he hits one.
Seth Rollins… STILL YOUR CHAMPION – Seth Rollins comes out and talks about how wrong everyone was about him.. again. He says he doesn’t give a damn about Brock Lesnar, he’s the WWE Champion and the most under-appreciated one there is. He says he’s faced every challenged and still has his title which is all that matters.
Rollins then brings out Lillian Garcia so that she can announced that he is still WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
For some reason, John Cena makes his way out and says we don’t have to deal with Rollins crap anymore. Rollins congratulates Cena on beating Kevin Owens and starts to leave so Cena can do his U.S. Open Challenge. Cena tells Rollins to stay and thanks him for being a slimeball because it adds value to his U.S. Title.
Rollins says that people earn their shot at his title, they don’t just get an open challenge every week. Rollins starts to leave but Cena calls him a joke and tells him to man up. Rollins stares him down but then walks away and oh God they’re giving Cena a title shot at SummerSlam aren’t they?
The Divas Revolution Continues – There were not one, but two Divas matches on Raw for the first time in years. First, we saw Charlotte beat Brie Bella in a pretty exciting match. Charlotte looked great hitting a big spear and winning with her Figure Eight.
Later in the night we got bae Sasha Banks & Naomi against Paige & Becky Lynch in another competitive match. Paige looked dominant, but it was Sasha who took home the win with her awesome finisher the Bank Statement.
Swoon.
Reigns Gets Some Back-Up – After Luke Harper cost Roman Reigns his match with Bray Wyatt at Battleground, the big dog looked for some retribution on Raw.
In case you forgot, Roman Reigns is really, really strong.
The finish to this one saw Wyatt cause a disqualification by pulling Reigns out of the ring. The Wyatts begin to beat Reigns down before Dean Ambrose makes the save and cleans house with his former Shield-mate.
Big Show Literally Squashes the Miz – Miz is backstage complaining to Triple H about Big Show knocking him out at Battleground while Trips tries to get work done. Never do that Miz, because all it gets you is a match with the Big Show. Show wins the match by hitting Miz with an elbow off the second rope that may or may not have killed the Awesome One.
Ouch.
New Day, Same Feud – Apparently we’re still going with the New Day-Prime Time Players feud because the challengers cost the Champs a tag match against the Matadores by distracting them from the ramp. Afterwards, the New Day celebrated with the worst ‘Millions of Dollars’ dance ever.