Following an up and down Night of Champions on Sunday, Monday Night Raw upped the frustration ante. There’s no doubt that the WWE roster is filled with young guys just waiting for a shot at main event glory, so to see where the WWE title storyline went Monday Night was… disappointing to say the least. Let’s take a look at what went down.
Who Wants Some More Kane-Rollins Feuding?! Nobody.
We first see Seth Rollins standing outside of the Authority’s locker room, he takes a deep breath and storms in shouting about how they need to take…care…of….
What’s so scary Seth?
Oh hey it’s Corporate Kane, in a great mood and happy to be back after Brock Lesnar broke his ankle a few months back. He acts like he has no idea what happened with Demon Kane at Night of Champions and lets Rollins know that he’s booked him in a rematch with John Cena for the U.S. Title… tonight!
So, it’s not bad enough that Kane is now seemingly in the title picture, but WWE decided to take it a step further by having him come back with a split personality? AWESOME. (That was sarcasm people)
Seth storms out and later we see him finally find the Authority and he pretty much loses it complaining about Kane being reinstated as Director of Operations, which looks like a surprise to Steph and Trips. They kind of play dumb and let Rollins ramble on before Trips tells Seth he needs to focus on Cena and winning back the U.S. Title and they’ll take care of Kane. Rollins storms off again and Steph and Trips exchange confused looks about this whole Kane situation.
Still backstage, we see the Authority walk into their office to talk to the really creepily happy Corporate Kane. They talk about how great the main event is but want to talk to Kane about showing up out of nowhere at Night of Champions and Kane says he has no idea what they’re talking about. Steph says she knows Kane has issues with Rollins and the Demon just keeps the split personality thing going on and on. Steph tells Kane she wants ‘it’ back, with it being the Demon Kane mask that was in a box in the Authority’s office, but now is suddenly missing. She sticks out her hand and…
Okay, I legitimately laughed at that. At least something funny came out of this whole thing.
Kane keeps acting like he doesn’t know what’s going on until his Demon personality kicks in and says there’s a big problem, and then right away he switches back to Corporate and says he’ll find the mask.
UGH.
HEY MORE BACKSTAGE STUFF. Rollins asks the Authority what they’re going to do about Kane, they tell him that Kane let his anger out already and not to worry so Seth loses it. Trips again tells him to worry about Cena, they’ll handle Kane.
In a shocking turn of events, this story finally hits the ring as Rollins and Cena meet for the third time with the U.S. title on the line. This is WWE’s way of killing two birds with one stone, ending Rollins story with that title and pushing forward his next feud on the way to Hell in a Cell. HMM I WONDER WHO HE’S GOING TO FEUD WITH?!
Another great match between Cena and Rollins follows as expected, featuring some big spots from both guys. We even got a crosssbody from Cena!
Rollins put on a clinic as usual, even locking Cena in an STF at one point.
But of course LOL CENA DOESN’T TAP and he would escape. The finish saw Rollins head up top for another impressive Frog Splash, but Cena being Cena he grabs Rollins and somehow rolls that into an Attitude Adjustment for the 1-2-3 and the win.
Great, now maybe we can stop seeing Cena pin/submit Rollins every other week and WWE will make the Champ look strong for once.
NOPE JUST KIDDING.
Kane appears on the TitanTron and tells Rollins that he needs to be the best WWE Champion he can be because anyone could come after him. QUICK WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED NEXT?!
If you guessed “red lights came on and pyro went off” you’ve won a brand new look of dissatisfaction on your face because Kane is feuding with Rollins again! AND THIS TIME IT’S FOR THE TITLE!
Kane pops out from under the ring because, of course Kane would come out from under the ring. He attempts to pull Rollins into the hole in the ring with him and the Champ is fighting for his life BECAUSE NOBODY WANTS TO GO TWO FEET UNDER THE RING!
Eventually, the Demon overpowers the Champ and is able to drag him STRAIGHT…TO…HELL!
Or you know, straight to two feet under the ring.
Pyro goes off and… that’s it.
So just want to make sure I’m getting this right. Rollins has been pinned or submitted by Cena and/or Sting for basically the past two months, and to help him look more legit he’s now getting dragged into hell underneath the ring by a wrestler who’s last relevant title reign came in 1998? AWESOME.
Ugh, can we just get to Survivor Series already?
Other Results:
New Day + Rusev = MAGICAL – If there was one great thing that came out of last night’s Raw, it was that WWE showed us we had all been missing out on a New Day/Rusev pairing and we didn’t even know it. The Tag Champs and the Bulgarian Brute teamed up to take on The Dudley Boyz and Dolph Ziggler and JUST LOOK AT THESE GIF’S.
THE MATCH HASN’T EVEN STARTED YET AND IT’S ALREADY MAGICAL.
We started off with a New Day promo on saving the tables, and then Xavier Woods shows us a piece of wood that doctors had to remove from his buttocks. They talk about building a wall around Dudleyville and never letting the Dudleyz ruin another table and seriously, these guys are pure magic on the mic.
The match itself was actually a ton of fun, as everyone involved got to hit some big spots. Xavier Woods at ringside was his usual golden self, HE PLAYED RUSEVS THEME MUSIC ON THE TROMBONE FOR GOODNESS SAKE, and even Summer Rae couldn’t ruin it.
Woods would even try to get involved in the action, and he ate a Ziggler superkick for his troubles.
At least we found out Summer Rae is good for something, she caught the trombone.
The Dudleyz hit us with some nostalgia, and let Ziggler in on the fun by hitting the “WASSSSSAAAAAAA” headbutt (yes, that’s how you spell it) on Rusev.
The end saw Rusev pick up the win with a super kick after Ziggler became distracted with Woods, and we were all blessed with this picture of their celebration.
The Viper Helps Ambreigns Even The Odds – After a failed (and super disappointing) addition of Chris Jericho to the Ambreigns team, we kicked off Raw with the Wyatt’s in the ring celebrating their win. This of course brought out Roman Reigns who challenged Wyatt to a one on one fight, which we got for like five seconds before the other Wyatt’s got involved. This of course brings out Dean Ambrose and we’ve seen this story before. Braun Strowman single-handedly destroys Ambreigns until the Viper makes his return and helps the former Shield members clean house.
Bray Wyatt, how do you feel about this latest development?
I feel the same way, although I’m pretty sure my fear comes from the fact that WWE can’t find someone fresh to pair with Ambreigns and keeps going back to guys who reached their peaks between 2002 and 2009.
Later the Wyatt’s cut a promo from their basement and say that Orton hasn’t learned his lesson and they all fall and you know the usual Wyatt stuff.
Paige Drops a Pipe Bomb – For weeks, Charlotte has been on a mission to dethrone Nikki Bella and win the Divas title, which she finally did at Night of Champions. And for weeks, Paige has been the member of Team PCB getting pinned by any and everyone, slowly growing more and more frustrated. This all came to a head last night on Raw.
Ric Flair came out and talks about how proud he is of his daughter and that her winning the Divas title was the proudest moment of his career. He introduces Charlotte and Team PCB, and after some of the usual Flair crying between daughter and father, Charlotte starts thanking her teammates. She thanks Becky for training with her and all that fun stuff, then starts to thank Paige and tells her that since NXT she has followed in Paige’s footsteps.
It’s all nice and sweet, until Paige gets the mic and decides to CM Punk everyone.
Paige calls the whole thing patronizing before starting to rip into every Diva in the company. Paige says that Charlotte is acting like she was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and yeah she won the championship but so what, Paige won it on her first day which FIRE FLAME EMOJIS.
She says Charlotte is just a placeholder with the title, which Charlotte doesn’t respond well to.
Paige then tells Becky that she’ll never be Divas Champ because she’s the least relevant out of all of them, which causes Charlotte to lose it and yell “YOU DON’T TALK TO HER LIKE THAT” at Paige like Becky is her little sister and not the most talented wrestler of the trio. Paige then calls Team B.A.D. is all flash and no substance, says she doesn’t know if Natalya even works in the company anymore, and says Lana and Summer Rae are too busy trying to climb guys to worry about climbing up the Divas division.
And is if that wasn’t enough hot fire, she scorches the Earth with some simple words about the Bellas, simply saying “We all know the real reason they got where they are. You all know the real reason.” and she’s right, we do, because they’re John Cena and Daniel Bryan’s boo thangs.
Paige closes things out by telling Charlotte to stop acting like she’s somebody when she’s only here because of her daddy before dropping a ‘WOO!’ and bouncing.
So yeah, Paige scorched the entire Divas division.
The Bellas come down and talk crap and then Charlotte beats Brie Bella and we’re all reminded about how far Brie has fallen down the Divas ladder.
Kevin Owens, Midcard Greatness – Good news people – Kevin Owens is your Intercontinental Champion!
Bad news people – Owens still has to feud with Ryback for another month.
Well if we have to deal with Ryback in this picture for another month, hopefully we get a ton more of Owens on commentary like we did when Ryback took on Bo Dallas. Owens was hilarious, talking trash on Ryback, telling Byron Saxton he didn’t hear him because he was trying really hard to ignore him and just overall being amazing. The performance deserved a true thumbs up.
Ryback picks up the win and then Owens attacks him as soon as the bell rings. The Big Guy takes control and goes for a ShellShock but Owens bails and takes his title with him as he should.
PUSH CESARO – We get a match between Big Show and Cesaro, which is bad enough considering a month ago Cesaro was on fire and now WWE has him wrestling a guy nobody cares to watch. It was a nice and slow match because that’s all Big Show can do at this point, and the only true highlight was Cesaro again reminding us all of how incredibly strong he is.
Show hits the KO Punch because Brock Lesnar match, and then cuts a promo on how he’s going to beat Lesnar like he did back in 2003 when he was last able to move at a normal pace. This is all stupid, why can’t we just get a Cesaro-Brock Lesnar match? Now that would be something.
Someone Save Neville & Cody Rhodes – In a rematch of the six-man tag match that nobody watched on the Night of Champions Kick-Off, Neville and the Lucha Dragons beat Stardust and the Ascension. The match was actually not bad, it did have some interesting spots. But it also had stuff like this.
Yeah. Can we please just end the Stardust gimmick and stick Cody Rhodes and Neville in the Intercontinental title picture to feud with Kevin Owens? Please? Pretty please?
Sheamus Takes Out His Frustration on Mark Henry – Another nothing match that just was a time eater during the show. Sheamus Brogue Kicks Henry after the World’s Strongest Man messed with his mohawk. After he cuts a promo and says he’s the Champ as far as he’s concerned, it’s just a matter of time until it happens.
Natalya Makes Her Return – Natalya was on Monday Night Raw for the first time since Tyson Kidd’s injury and she lost a match with Naomi. Regardless of what happened in the match, it was good to see Natty back after what has surely been a trying couple of months.