The WWE train continued to chug along on the way to Hell in a Cell Monday Night, and we saw some new rivalries begin to flesh themselves out ahead of next month’s pay-per-view. However, the majority of the night was spent on re-hashing rivalries we’ve seen for months (or years) on end, giving us an up and down show. Let’s take a look at what went down.
The Demon is Officially Back
For the first time in what seems like at least a year, Seth Rollins and the Authority didn’t open OR close Monday Night Raw. That of course doesn’t mean they didn’t dominate most of the show though. We kick things off by seeing Triple H and Stephanie McMahon talking to an HR lady about Kane when the Demon comes in. McMahon tells him how important HR is to WWE and then reveals that ‘someone’ filed a complaint on Kane or making an unsafe work environment.
Enter Seth Rollins, who calls it an unfortunate event and says that the person who complained anonymously is a coward! Kane gets in his face and tells Rrollins that he’s the man before leaving very excitedly with the HR lady.
Backstage we see Rollins talking to HR lady when Kane walks in with a big gift box for Rollins. This can’t be anything good at all.
Yeah, Seth doesn’t look too excited. What’s inside Champ?
OH JUST THE SEVERED HEAD OF YOUR STATUE, NO BIGGIE.
Rollins storms out and Kane instead gives the statue head to the HR lady. Okay then.
We head out to the ring and it’s time for Kane’s evaluation. The HR lady starts her report but of course Rollins interrupts. He lets her know that Kane is putting on an act and he isn’t who he seems to be, since this storyline isn’t ridiculous enough. He shows a video of Demon Kane destroying stuff, and then tells us the Pope said he’s going to heaven for some reason.
Kane just laughs then shows a video of Rollins torturing Kane over the months.
HR Lady finally gets to her report, and she says Kane is fine. But you know who isn’t fine? SETH ROLLINS. She says that Rollins needs to be evaluated then basically ethers the man. Rollins calls this a travesty and then starts getting in Kane’s face. He drops his title and when Kane bends over to pick it up Rollins hits him with a Pedigree.
Rollins then gets a steel chair and starts wailing on the Demon repeatedly. He puts Kane’s formerly broken ankle in the chair and stomps on it, presumably re-breaking the Demon’s ankle.
WWE medics rush out and pull Kane out on a stroller as Rollins gets on the mic and mocks Kane. Rollins says nobody can pull a fast one on him and he’s the man. We see Kane put into an ambulance that starts leaving… only it doesn’t.
The inside of the ambulance turns red (come on don’t do this), and the doors swing open with smoke flowing out. Rollins looks pretty worried about these developments.
And… yeah they’re really going to have Demon Kane come out of the ambulance.
Kane starts limping when he leaves the ambulance because broken ankle, but don’t worry guys, he has a remedy!
Seriously, he just stomped his broken ankle back into place. WHY DO YOU DO THESE THINGS TO US WWE?!
Kane goes back in the arena and his pyro scares the hell out of Rollins who apparently is the only person that didn’t know it was coming. Kane hits Rollins with a massive chokeslam before calling for the Tombstone, but Rollins escapes out of the ring, leaving his title behind. The Demon picks it up and poses with the title as his pyro goes off.
Seriously, HATE THIS.
New Day… Still Rocks
We kicked off Raw with John Cena and the return of the U.S. Title Open Challenge. There are plenty of downsides to Cena having a title, but his open challenge has easily been one of the most enjoyable parts of Raw since ‘Mania. And how do you make it even more enjoyable? BY INCLUDING THE NEW DAY OF COURSE.
The greatest thing in wrestling today make their way down to the ring and remind us they are national treasures. They give Cena a new slogan (Hustle, Loyalty and Booty) and then Kofi says they are going to win the U.S. title to go with their tag titles, and then we can start calling them Scrooge McDuck because they’ll be swimming in gold. Seriously, I love these guys.
Cena then does Cena things and tells them to send one guy in the ring or he’s going to kick all of their asses which, whatever bro.
New Day huddles up and it’s time to pick our next savior…. XAVIER WOODS!
Woods and Cena actually put on a pretty damn good match with some great spots. It’s easy to forget that Woods is a great wrestler because we’re too busy enjoying him playing trombone during all those New Day tag matches. Kofi and Big E got ejected at the start so we really got to see Woods shine for the first time in a long time.
The highlight of the match probably came when Cena tried to hit an Attitude Adjustment and Woods hit a unique reversal on the Champ.
But of course, it wouldn’t be a match with John Cena if Woods didn’t have to sell just how damn strong John Cena is right?
Cena eventually locks in the STF but before he can get Woods to tap, Big E & Kofi interfere to cause the DQ. The Tag Champs start to beat Cena down when the Dudley Boyz come out to make the save.
GUESS WHAT COMES NEXT?! YUP A SIX MAN TAG MATCH!
We start things off with Cena and Big E and yeah Big E is still the best.
Cena plays the face in peril for most of the match, taking a beating from the New Day before finally getting a hot tag to D-Von who starts to clean house, hitting this awesome neckbreaker on Kofi.
D-Von tries to dodge a Big E save attempt, but just throws him literally through Cena.
The Dudleyz try to hit a 3-D to finish things off, but Xavier Woods interferes and the distraction allows Kofi Kingston to hit the 1-2-3 and get the win for our favorite faction.
NEW! DAY! ROCKS!
Reigns & Wyatt Absolutely Destroy Each Other (And the Arena)
We see Dean Ambrose backstage pleading with Roman Reigns to let him accompany Reigns to the ring for his match with Bray Wyatt in Raw’s main event, telling Reigns the Wyatt’s have tricks up their sleeves and they’ll attack him. Reigns says he doesn’t care and Wyatt is going to get his. Ambrose says if anything goes down he’ll come out swinging and Reigns tells him to call Randy Orton for help if he needs it.
On cue, Orton makes his way in and they debate interfering before Reigns puts an end to it. Orton tells him he better take care of Bray because after tonight it’s open season on the Wyatt Family.
Wyatt cuts a promo saying he’ll come to the ring alone, but of course when it’s match time he shows up with Harper and Strowman. Reigns gets on the mic and asks the other Wyatts if they even respect Bray, before then calling him a little bitch and challenging him to fight without his training wheels. Well okay then Roman, bring out that aggression.
Long, physical, grueling, amazing match between these two as expected. Seriously, this is going to be one of those feuds you see in the title picture for the next decade, so enjoy what these two young guys are doing right now as they build to that.
Things really got interesting when they spilled to the outside. Reigns and Wyatt were so focused on destroying each other that they didn’t even realize the ref was counting them out.
Wyatt tries to escape through the crowd but Reigns follows him and now they’re brawling in the stands. Wyatt takes advantage and starts using anything he can find to fight Reigns, including a ringside technician.
This stuns Reigns, and Wyatt takes advantage by throwing his body through Reigns and taking them both through the barricade ringside in an awesome moment.
Reigns is basically dead and Wyatt realizes what he’s done. The Bearded One starts to celebrate by posing on the announce table and playing to the crowd.
Big mistake Bray.
If history has shown us anything, it’s that Roman Reigns is never down for long. Wyatt seemed to forget this, and boy did he ever pay for it.
Reigns leaps off the ground and hits a HUGE spear on Wyatt through the table! Seriously, that came out of nowhere and was freaking awesome.
We go off the air with neither man able to move.
WWE finally gave some other guys a chance to main event Raw and these two did not fail to deliver. What a match.
Other Results –
The IC Title Picture Grows – We get a Rusev-Kevin Owens match that should have been amazing but instead is incredibly quick and disappointing. The end comes when Owens throws Rusev into Ryback, who is ringside on commentary, and a huge brawl breaks out.
Rusev and Owens begin to team up and beat down on Ryback, before Dolph Ziggler comes down and makes the save. Can’t tell if they’re hinting at a Fatal Fourway for the IC title or just setting up a tag match on Raw next week, but let’s hope it’s the first one.
Divas Take Over MizTV – The Miz is his usual annoying self and he talks about the tension between Divas before hyping Total Divas because obviously. He brings out Becky Lynch and Charlotte and Lynch calls him a sexist jackass and yes, Becky Lynch is amazing. They start talking about Paige pipebomb from last week and Charlotte says she can come out and talk, or come out and fight. Miz keeps interrupting so Becky takes care of that problem for everyone.
That’s right Miz, nobody wants to hear you.
Of course, the Bellas come down and ruin everything, then Paige comes out as soon as the five are about to throw down and says she started the Divas Revolution. They all brawl and then of course SIX PERSON TAG MATCH!
The finish to this saw Paige bail on her team after Charlotte accidentally bumped her, and then she pulled Natalya off the apron when Natty tried to replace her int he match. Bellas win because Nikki.
All Hail The King – For like the 45th time in the past three months we got some form of the Stardust-Neville match in a feud that WWE insists on continuing instead of you know, pushing guys like Neville and Stardust. The end saw the return of King Barrett and he hits Neville with a massive Bullhammer.
Stardust begs for mercy but… NO.
King Barrett is back and ready to live on the midcard again.
RK-Olieve! – Super quick squash match between Randy Orton and Bo Dallas that saw Dallas talk down a few Buffalo Bills sitting ringside before, yup you guessed it, Orton wins with an RKO.
The Wyatt Family Keeps Rolling – Luke Harper and Strong Throwman took on the Primetime Players and it was exactly what you’d expect, a slaughter. The end to this saw Strowman choke Titus O’Neill out to pick up the win.
Big Show… Still Not Interesting – Big Show had a match with Mark Henry that happened and was not interesting at all. It ended with Henry eating a KO Punch and Show winning. Later, Show then ruined a perfectly good Paul Heyman promo by saying he was going to Eat, Sleep, Beat Brock Lesnar, Repeat and you know what I hope he visits Suplex City 46 times on Saturday night. The only good thing about all this is I was reminded that WWE is having a live Network special from MSG this Saturday featuring Lesnar and a Rollins/Cena cage match, check it out!