After last week’s night of returns and surprises, this week’s Raw was light on surprises and heavy on wrasslin’ and storyline development. Let’s take a look at what went down.
Rollins To Pull Double Duty at Night of Champions
We start things off with the Vigilante himself, Sting making his way down to the ring to address his actions on last week’s Raw. Needless to say, the crowd is feeling them some Sting.
Sting grabs a mic and talks about how the last time he was here he fought Triple H and after that match he’ll always respect the Game. But that was then, and now Sting’s target is Seth Rollins. Sting says that Rollins is really good, but he’s no Triple H. Stinger talks about Rollins holding onto his title by any means necessary, winning in a bunch of different dirty ways.
The Stinger then says that Rollins is crazy for comparing himself to legends like Andre the Giant and the Ultimate Warrior because Rollins is only a legend in his mind. He says that in his long career he’s held many titles, but the one that has eluded Sting is the WWE title and at Night of Champions he’s going to win the title and prove that Seth Rollins isn’t halfthe man that Triple H is.
Side note; Is it in Sting’s contract that he has to put Trips over at all times? That was weird and seemed entirely scripted by the Game himself.
We see pouty Rollins backstage and he complains to Steph who hits him in the face by telling him that Rollins isn’t half the man Triple H is… not yet at least. Rollins complains about not getting his statue so Steph tells him to gas Sting for it.
Now Rollins is being interviewed by Renee Young and he says that Sting disrespected all the legends when he stole his statue last week. Now Rollins is going to call Sting out and says if Stinger thinks he isn’t half the man Triple H is then he should subscribe to the WWE Network and watch his matches.
Rollins comes out and says he had no issues with Sting until last week. He calls himself a real man who doesn’t hide like Sting and he wants the Vigilante to come out and apologize for calling Triple H better than him and to return his statue.
This of course brings out… Stephanie McMahon? Steph tells Rollins to stop comparing himself to her husband and Rollins responds with some great logic that Steph totally glosses over. Steph eventually calls Rollins the man but not before some tense moments.
(PLANT THOSE ROLLINS-TRIPLE H FEUD SEEDS WWE, PLANT THEM ALL)
Rollins again calls out Sting and he gets… John Cena. Yay.
We almost made it through one whole Raw without remembering Cena existed, but the 15x Champ comes out and says that Steph and the Authority will eventually turn on Rollins and make his life miserable. Rollins tells him to get to the point so Cena says the Authority promised that every title would be defended at Night of Champions so guess what? Cena is invoking his rematch clause. Steph has no choice but to accept and make the match official.
GUESS WHAT THAT MEANS PEOPLE! TWO SETH ROLLINS TITLE MATCHES AT NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS!
Cena heads up the ramp and Sting makes his way out as the two icons share the stage.
WWE now has a chance to make Seth Rollins an absolute legend at Night of Champions. Go over Cena and Sting clean on the same show and he’s a made man. Or you know, WWE could just have him drop both titles because LOL CENA WINS.
Either way, we have two Rollins title matches and two chances for the best in the business to steal the show. Seth, can we trust you to deliver at NoC?
You’re damn right we can. Night of Champions is suddenly must-see TV.
Other Results:
Kevin Owens & Cesaro Steal the Show… Again – WWE decided to bless us all with a surprise rematch between Cesaro and Kevin Owens and once again, the two did not disappoint. As is usually the case, their match featured a ton of big spots and near-falls. Owens got us started with this awesome swinging neckbreaker.
Cesaro of course brought plenty of uppercuts, including this huge one on the outside.
And as is often the case, the Swiss Superman showed us his incredible strength by somehow turning this DDT attempt by Owens into a Crippler’s Crossface.
In the end, Owens was able to pick up the win after sending Cesaro ribs first into the announce table. One Pop-Up Power Bomb later and KO was your winner.
Braun Strowman? More Like Strong Throwman AMIRITE?! – Braun Strowman, aka the new behemoth of the Wyatt Family, made his debut against Dean Ambrose and well I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t impressive. But first, Bray Wyatt cut a promo in the ring thanking Sister Abigail for giving him his Black Sheep and then Strowman calls this the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Roman Reigns made his way out to back Ambrose but it really didn’t make a difference because Strowman was doing things like this to the Lunatic Fringe.
The end saw Strowman shove Reigns at ringside so Roman interfered causing the DQ. Strowman then proceeded to single-handedly destroy Reigns and Ambrose, you know, two-thirds of the Shield. This of course ends with Wyatt hitting Reigns with a Sister Abigail.
WWE, you have a good chance to make a star here with whoever is picked as the third man in Reigns and Ambrose’s crew, DON’T SCREW IT UP.
And for the love of God please don’t make it Adam Rose.
Dudleyz Make a Statement – Backstage we see the returning Dudleyz telling Renee Young that their back for two reasons: to win the Tag Titles for a 10th time and put everyone through tables. New Day comes out for the match and pulls out a table in bubble-wrap, starting a ‘Save the tables’ chant to the tune of ‘New Day Rocks!’ and it’s awesome. Not as awesome as Xavier Woods new hair though.
Good match between the two teams with the Dudleyz looking right at home back in the ring. Kofi takes the 3D and the Dudleyz return is a success.
No tables were harmed during this match.
The Divas Revolution Stalls – For the first time ever, WWE had a Divas featured ‘Beat the Clock’ challenge to determine who would face Nikki Bella for the Diva’s title at Night of Champions. Simple enough concept that could showcase multiple Divas and be exciting, hard to screw up right? Wrong. So Wrong.
First, Becky Lynch did her thing and made Alicia Fox tap out to set the bar at 3:21.
Then, Charlotte basically annihliated that number by beating Brie Bella in 1:40. That’s right, the same Brie who is supposed to be one of the top Divas in the division, went down in less than 2 minutes to Charlotte.
The bar now being set, our final match was Paige against bae aka Sasha Banks. But before any of us could get too excited, we’re told Sasha can’t win the challenge because why give the most over Diva in the company a title shot right?
After stealing the show with the match of the weekend last week in Brooklyn, the Boss was nothing more than fodder for Paige to beat on and eventually hit the Ram-Paige in under a minute and a half.
Banks Team B.A.D. members pull her out of the ring to ensure that Paige can’t win in time and we now have Charlotte vs. Nikki at Night of Champions.
So, how long before the crowd turns on Charlotte because she’s getting the push Sasha deserves?
Big Show, Ryback & Miz is Still a Thing – The Big Show and Ryback faced off in an Intercontinental title match that momentarily gave us hope their feud was about to end. Then we saw Miz at ringside and yeah, this thing is still going. Ryback gets the win with Shellshocked after, you guessed it, a Miz distraction.
Ziggler & Rusev. The Storyline That Won’t Die – Never in my life did I think I’d actively be rooting for the end of a Dolph Ziggler storyline, but my goodness this feud with Rusev is just getting exhausting. Somehow, it received FOUR segments during Raw. First we had a match between the two that ended in DQ after Ziggler hit this botched Zig Zag and Summer Rae interfered.
Then after Ziggler ominously told us backstage that it wasn’t the last they’d see of Rusev and Summer, we get a segment where Ziggler is half-naked and Summer Rae is running out of his lockerroom.
So Summer either ambushed Ziggler or Dolph tried to seduce her and this storyline isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Damn it.