WWE capped off a three-day wrestling extravaganza at the Barclay’s Center with last night’s Raw and boy did the E close things out with a bang. After an awesome weekend featuring a classic NXT special and a stacked SummerSlam, many expected Raw to be, well underwhelming. Let’s take a look at what went down on a show that turned out to be anything but.
Sting Is Back.. And He Wants the WWE Title
We’re introduced with a video of Triple H leading Seth Rollins through WWE headquarters with Trips telling Rollins he’s not the future, he’s the man in WWE. He says that tonight, they will unveil a Seth Rollins statute due to the Champ beating John Cena at SummerSlam and I really hope it’s a statue of him holding up both titles like this.
Backstage, we see Stephanie McMahon talking to John Cena and Cena says he wants to get even with Rollins. So Steph smiles and has security escort Cena out of the building. You won’t ruin Seth’s coronation John!
How is Steph such an amazing heel?!
Finally, the Authority makes their way out to the ring for our our WWE savior’s coronation. Steph grabs the mic and wishes her dad Vince a happy 70th while the crowd sings Happy Birthday and Trips jokes that the whole thing probably just pissed Vince off.
Hunter then begins to put over how amazing Seth Rollins is and I mean he really lays it on thick before introducing THE MAN – SETH ROLLINS.
Rollins hypes his statue and talks about how he became a bonafide legend by beating Cena and then says that tonight will make him immortal. Rollins says that Cena has been a workhorse for the company for the past decade and says that he had to bea tthe man to become the man, and he did exactly that.
But enough talking, it’s time to see the statue! Rollins asks for it to be unveiled and…
THAT’S NOT A STATUE.. THAT’S STING! The Authority’s faces say it all right now.
Also, how long was Sting under that damn curtain? His face-paint has basically been sweat completely off his forehead at this point.
Steph and Trips slide their way out of the ring as Sting and Rollins stare each other down. Rollins tries to get the upper-hand and well, that’s freaking Sting man.
You attack, and you get the splash.
Sting dumps Rollins to the outside and then notices a shiny little thing in the corner of the ring.
Uh oh.
THAT”S RIGHT SETH, STING WANTS YOUR WWE TITLE. What does this all mean you ask? THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS:
ROLLINS. STING. NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS.
Sting, in WWE, fighting for the WWE title. LOOK AT WHAT YOUR FUTURE COULD HOLD PEOPLE!
And yes, I’m totally going to gloss over the fact that Cena is likely to somehow get included in this feud.
Other Results:
Lesnar Wants His Revenge – A very angry and ornery-looking Brock Lesnar makes his way out with Payle Heyman and the Walrus introduces himself as the “pissed-off advocate of the ripped-off conquerer” Brock Lesnar. Heyman says that Lesnar took Undertaker to Suplex City and made him tap out to the Kimura lock and the video doesn’t lie. Nothing changes the fact that Taker tapped to Lesnar and this proves that Lesnar is the better fighter and the Dead Man knows it.
Heyman basically calls Undertaker a little kid who gets beaten up by the bigger kid before saying Lesnar wants to fight Taker one last time, RIGHT FREAKING NOW! As everyone marks out at the idea of Taker showing up, we are instead blessed with none other than Bo Dallas.
Don’t do it Bo.
Dallas comes out and tells Lesnar that he needs to BOLIEVE and well we know what happens next.
Dallas visits Suplex City four times. And then Heyman convinces Lesnar to send Bo one more time just for fun.
And then, F-5 for giggles.
Remember when Bo Dallas was NXT Champ and a future star in the company? Me neither.
Lesnar exits and his next steps with Taker are TBA.
GET THE TABLES!!! – Our new tag champs, the New Day, make their way out and have a pretty good match with the Lucha Dragons. Xavier Woods in particular was amazing, especially when the team celebrated picking up the win.
Then out of nowhere, some pyro goes off. Who is that?
IT’S THE DUDLEY BOYZ!!!!! I am legit marking out at this point. The Dudleyz (WUT?!) head to the ring and Xavier tries to talk to them. GTFO Xavier.
The Dudley Boyz dump everyone except for Xavier because well, someone must be sacrificed. First, Woods gets hit with the WASSSSUPP!!!!!
For the uninitiated, this is the part where we all collectively mark the hell out. D-VON! GET THE TABLES!!!!
Picture-perfect 3D through the table on Woods. The Dudley Boyz are back people, CELEBRATE!
The Wyatt Family Grows – We get a rematch between the Wyatt Family and Ambreigns that was pretty much as good as what we saw at SummerSlam. Reigns sets up to spear Wyatt and then that creepy glitch graphic that is synonymous with the Wyatt’s hits and suddenly there’s some GIGANTIC guy standing on the apron wearing a bear mask.
THAT’S BRAUN STROWMAN! Okay so the announcers don’t name him, but that behemoth is a former strongman who has been signed to WWE for a few years now. He’s incredibly huge and ridiculously strong, and he promptly showed it off by destroying both Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns.
Talk about running into a brick wall. Strowman then picks up Reigns like he weighs 35 pounds and squeezes the life out of him.
And then disposes of the WWE’s next Golden Boy.
What an addition to the Wyatt’s. I think it’s starting to become pretty clear Ambreigns needs some back up here.
Angry John Cena is Angry – Jon Stewart hits the ring to take in a “Thank You Stewart!” chant that he fully deserved after chair-shotting John Cena the night before. Stewart says he stopped Cena because he didn’t want Flair’s record to be tied and hey, that’s admirable. This of course leads to Ric Flair himself coming out and the two strutting all over the place.
Flair tells him thanks but he respects Cena and he wants someone he likes to break his record. Cena comes out and tells Stewart that now Rollins is U.S. and WWE Champ and apparently Jon Stewart didn’t know this would happen when he helped Seth. They go back and forth and Stewart says he respects Cena, so Cena promptly picks him up and hits an Attitude Adjustment.
The Entire Mid-Card in One Match – WWE decided to throw together an eight-man tag match featuring the team of Cesaro-Dolph Ziggler-Ryback and Randy Orton against Sheamus-Rusev-Big Show and Kevin Owens. This was exactly what you’d expect out of a tag match with this many guys. Ziggler took a good amount of punishment in this match. Both physical…
…and psychological.
Kevin Owens: still amazing. Eventually, Sheamus accidentally gets KO’ed by Big Show and eats an RKO for the 1-2-3.
The real fun started after the match was over when everyone decided to beat down Big Show. It ended with Ryback and Cesaro picking Show up so that Orton could hit an RKO on the big man.
Looks like Dolph Ziggler was pretty excited about the move.
Bad Night for the Divas Revolution – We get some MizTV with team PCB and he talks about how amazing he is for a while before PCB says they’ll fight anyone any time. This brings out Team Bella and a brawl breaks out which yup, you guessed it, leads to a tag match. The crowd really wasn’t feeling at all because there was really no reason to have another tag match like this. Brooklyn isn’t kind and the crowd broke into a ton of different chants and ignored Team Bella’s win. Although this move from Charlotte was pretty sweet.
Stardust Goes Solo – King Barrett and Stardust make their way out for a tag match that never starts because Stardust attacks Barrett. For some reason Neville decides to make the save for a guy he just pinned the night before and Stardust promptly scurries away. Okay then.