Last night’s Monday Night Raw was a somber telecast that kicked off with a 10-bell tribute to WWE legend Rowdy Roddy Piper. The Hall of Famer and all-time great heel passed away over the weekend at 61 years of age, and all WWE superstars were out to pay respects to the legend.
With the ‘Hot Rod’ on their minds, WWE superstars paid tribute to the legend throughout the night. We also had an incredible WWE title match and the return of Brock Lesnar, so let’s take a look at what went down last night.
Rollins Survives Neville’s Incredible Challenge
After our tribute to Piper, Seth Rollins comes out and reminds us of why he is one of the best heels in the company since the Rowdy one. Rollins says only he can slow himself down and says he has a sympathy problem. He says breaking Cena’s nose was disgusting because he felt it crack on his knee as the crowd chants ‘Thank You Rollins!’ and he said that he tried to have the match stopped because of what he did to Cena’s face.
Rollins says that sympathy ended up being his downfall and he vowed that will never happen again. He then challenges Cena to a title for title match at SummerSlam (so much good or bad can happen with this) but says that’s for when Cena comes back.
Side note: Rollins is wearing a new shirt that may be the greatest thing WWE has ever come up with. Instead of Cena’s ‘Never Give Up’ the front says ‘Never Shuts Up’ which, perfection.
And the back? Instead of ‘U Can’t See Me’ it has ‘U Can’t See Knee’ and again, this is absolutely perfect.
Rollins says he won the title in San Jose (where Raw was held last night) and it’s also the same city where Cena had his first U.S. Open Challenge. So because Cena can’t compete Rollins is going to give us a WWE World Heavyweight Championship Open Challenge!
Okay so of course there’s a catch because Seth Rollins, so Rollins says his opponent has to be under 6 feet and weigh less than 200 pounds, so basically he wants to fight El Torito. And wouldn’t you know it, Los Matadores music kicks in! IT’S TIME TO CROWN EL TORITOOOOOOOOOO!
Sadly, the music stops abruptly. Amazingly, Neville’s music hits instead and OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE!
If you’re reading this then you are obviously a WWE fan, so you know what Rollins and Neville are individually capable of in the ring. Which means like me, you’re giddy at the idea of these two putting on a match, especially one for the WWE title. So instead of words, I’m giving you the gift of GIF’s. This was Neville’s coming out party, enjoy the show he put on.
Rollins tried to escape to the outside, but yeah no, Neville loves when his opponent are standing ringside.
Seriously, the dude loves diving off of the ring to the outside in ridiculously athletic ways.
Try to use high-flying moves against him and well…
And Neville immediately follows that up by reminding us that he has an incredible in-ring repertoire to work with as well.
HOW IS ROLLINS NOT PARALYZED?! Incredible moves like that couldn’t put the Champ away however, so Neville decided to up the ante.
After rolling Rollins up and getting about as close of a near-fall as you can get (seriously it was like a 2 and 99/100 count), Neville is finally able to hit the prettiest finisher in all of sports entertainment on the Champ!
1… OH MY GOD NEVILLE IS GOING TO DO IT…2….NEVILLE IS GOING TO BE THE WWE CHAMP…. SETH GOT HIS FOOT ON THE ROPE!!! HOW?!
What a freaking match these two are putting on. Neville has thrown literally EVERYTHING at Rollins, and the Champ has been able to stay alive through it all.
A frustrated Neville climbs up the ropes to go for another Red Arrow, but Rollins dodges it and well….
1-2-3. Seth retains.
What a way to kick off Raw, good luck topping that for the next two hours folks. Great job by WWE allowing Rollins to fight and defend his title without anyone getting involved or any weird finish. Double congrats for picking the perfect opponent to remind us all just how great Seth can be in the ring.
Neville might be small, but that kid is going to be a superstar in this company very, very soon.
Lesnar Promises to Give Taker his Last Rites
Paul Heyman is in the ring and he says that the Undertaker picked a fight with Brock Lesnar. He says we saw an angry Undertaker who hit Lesnar with a low-blow because he knows he’s never beaten the Beast and that Taker can’t live with himself because he can’t and won’t beat Brock Lesnar.
Lesnar then makes his way out and decides to thrwo the steel steps into the ring because he can and well Lesnar does whatever he wants. He stands on the steps and looks as intimidating as he can while Heyman reminds everyone what happened at Wrestlemania 30. Heyman says that the Beast asked Vince McMahon for a rematch but Vince said no because presumably Lesnar would have killed Taker had he not had a year and a half to recover from said beating.
Heyman says Taker attacked Lesnar forced WWE to give us the fight (really? I thought it was the low Raw ratings…) and that at SummerSlam we’re getting a match that’s too big for Wrestlemania or anything else. Heyman promises that Lesnar will Eat, Sleep, Suplex, Repeat Taker through Suplex City and this time the Dead Man won’t leave in an ambulance, he’ll be getting his last rites.
Great promo work from Heyman, really was hoping Taker would come out and give us another epic brawl but this will do for now.
Other Results:
Owens & Cesaro on Miz TV is AWE-SOME! – Miz comes out in a ‘Hot Rod’ shirt and says Piper had the most must-see WWE talk show which is a nice touch. He tells Ryback to surrender his Intercontinental title but then we get to the good stuff and he brings out Kevin Owens. Owens hilariously says he’s a huge Miz fan and he owns all of Miz’s movies on Blu-ray.
They talk about Owens issues with Cesaro and KO says that Cesaro is jealous of him and begins to list off his accomplishments. This brings out Cesaro who starts calling KO ‘Walk Owens Walk’ because he keeps walking away from fights.
Owens gets right to it and says Cesaro is jealous that Owens did in three months what Cesaro couldn’t do in three years but Cesaro just says he’s ashamed of Owens not jealous of him. Eventually we get a pretty awesome staredown between the two. I think Miz’s reaction pretty much sums up how we’re all feeling about an Owens-Cesaro fight at this point.
Owens again says he’ll fight Cesaro, but not tonight and walks away. The crowd starts chanting ‘Walk Owens Walk!’ and he rushes back in and pushes Miz into Cesaro. KO tries to hit a Pop-Up Powerbomb but Cesaro reverses and tries to hit a Giant Swing. Owens escapes and again walks away.
Seriously, is it SummerSlam yet?
Reigns, Ambrose & Orton Take Out the Beardos – The Wyatts teamed up with Sheamus because why not? Orton forget all about the Shield destroying him for a year and teamed up with Reigns and Ambrose and the six had a typical six-man tag match. Things eventually went into full on chaos mode and Reigns started murdering everyone.
Wyatt took a nice flying double kick to the face before Luke Harper got some himself.
And for good measure, Dean Ambrose hit a flying elbow drop on all three of his opponents.
The finish saw Reigns spear Sheamus for the win.
Alright then.
Newbies Take Out the Bellas – Becky Lynch and Charlotte continued their rise through the Diva’s division by taking out the Bellas in a pretty good tag match. This one featured some innovative moves like this double-team from the Bellas on Charlotte.
But Charlotte got the last laugh and a huge rub, making Divas Champ Nikki tap to the Figure Eight.
Rusev Does Things Against Mark Henry – Typical Rusev match, ends with this.
And his big kick to Henry for the 1-2-3. After the match more yelling and another kick to Henry.
Let’s Just Throw All the Tag Teams Into the Title Picture – The Ascension joined the tag team chaos by teaming with New Day to beat the Lucha Dragos and Los Matadores. Those four plus the Prime Time Players now has us up to five teams currently in the title picture. Why not?
Bad News Barrett Beats Zack Ryder to Kill Some Time – So this is a match that happened. Barrett called Ryder worthless, and won a quick match with the Bullhammer. Moving on.
Paige and Namoi Put on a Clunker – The Divas revolution has been pretty awesome, this match was not. Paige gets the win via submission.