After Sunday's Night of Champions PPV, I mentioned how I was excited for Monday Night RAW. The more I think about the episode, the more meh I felt about it. It's like they took a few steps forward and then went back again. Instead of talking about every match that happened, I'll just talk about the major highlights.
Hey look! They're passively promoting "12 Rounds 3: Lockdown" again! It's not in theaters anymore and it's still VOD.
Brawl: Wyatt Family vs Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, and Randy Orton
I was half expecting to get a lengthy promo from Rollins bragging about his back-to-back matches to open up the show. Instead, the Wyatt Family showed up and talked down Reigns and Ambrose. Reigns came out and said he just wanted to have a one-on-one brawl with Wyatt; they don't need a ref to make a match. Of course, it couldn't stay one-on-one with Luke Harper and Braun Strowman outside the ring so they interfered, which prompted Dean Ambrose ("ROMAN REIGNS' BUDDY!" yelled Micheal Cole) to join in on the fight, and he was being wildly tenacious with Strowman. The duo appeared to be getting overwhelmed again, which made me believe that Chris Jericho would come out (and judging by the crowd chanting "Y2J", so did they). Their third man turned out to be Randy Orton, taking his revenge after being jumped by them a few weeks ago. And they managed to "win" against the Wyatt Family. Great.
I was pretty sad to find out afterwards that Jericho was a one night only thing, which meant the potential feud between Jericho and Ambrose that was heavily implied with the shoulder bump really went nowhere. And no offense to Randy Orton but I didn't want to see him lumped with Ambrose and Reigns again. I guess this is better for him than dealing with Sheamus. And worst of all, The Wyatt Family "lost." It's like they're really hitting it home that Ambrose and Reigns would only succeed against the family with a better third man, unlike with Jimmy Uso and Jericho. It's looking like they'll be continuing this family war to Hell In A Cell next month, which I'm not looking forward to. I'm still damn bitter that Jericho vs Ambrose is not happening.
The Return of Interrupting Kane Demon Kane Corporate Kane
Sunday was the surprise return of Demon Kane. Rollins was understandably wary tonight and wanted to talk to HHH and Stephanie to do something about it. Instead, he got another surprise appearance from an unusually chipper Corporate Kane. Apparently, he doesn't recall being at Night of Champions last night because he was still recovering from his leg injury. Kane has happily resumed his role as Director of Operations, and the first thing he did on his first day back was set up a rematch for him against John Cena for the US Title, much to Rollins' confusion. Not since Team Hell No have I ever enjoyed Kane acting this silly. Weirdly enough, this seems like the right direction for Kane since his appearance drew more of a "WTF" reaction. What's even more weirder is that Rollins is once again being moved into another feud for another PPV so quickly. After Ambrose, he's been up against Lesnar, Cena, Sting, and now Kane. What are they doing to Rollins?
Charlotte had an in-ring celebration with Team PCB and Ric Flair, who introduced her and said that her little girl winning the Divas Championship was his greatest accomplishment. This was great and all until Paige took the mic and she fucking unleashed her true feelings on the whole Divas Revolution, that was reminiscent of AJ Lee's pipe bomb. She said that started the Divas Revolution when she came to WWE, this whole thing with Charlotte was patronizing, and the best part, that Charlotte is just a placeholder. Her reign will come to an end soon because Nikki can still invoke her rematch clause and the Divas Revolution will go back to where it was. She called Becky Lynch irrelevant, which infuriated Charlotte. Paige also called out Lana and Summer for basically being sluts and also called out Natalya for not being a part of this. Paige walked away from the group, prompting Team Bella to talk down Charlotte and starting a match with her against Brie Bella (thankfully Charlotte won).
Natalya vs Naomi: Winner - Naomi
Natalya would later show up for the second Divas segment against Naomi. She confronted Paige earlier about ruining Charlotte's moment to make her point. Anyways, Natty was absolutely amazing in the ring. It's baffling that she didn't get to wrestle this much since she had be a valet to Tyson Kidd months earlier when he was on NXT and RAW/Smack Down! She lost to Naomi's stupid Rear View finisher. Hopefully, they'll feature Natalya frequently because she's one of the few main roster Divas that can still wrestle.
Cesaro vs Big Show: Winner - Big Show
I'm not happy with this match. I get that Big Show has to look strong against Lesnar since they have a match at Madison Square Garden next week. But of all opponents, why Cesaro? After doing a seemingly impossible suplex spot on Big Show, Cesaro is easily knocked out by Big Show's weak punch. Big Show cut a promo on how he has history with Lesnar and that he'll defeat him or whatever. This match with Cesaro didn't need to happen at all. Don't do this to Cesaro, who's one of the best and strongest workers on the main roster.
The Dudley Boyz and Dolph Ziggler vs The New Day and Rusev: Winners - The New Day and Rusev
This was unusual to make it a 6 man tag team match while Xavier was left out. Nonetheless, it was an entertaining match. Xavier was no longer sporting his Rufio hairstyle from Sunday but he was noticeably limping towards the ring. He held up a little Quest Diagnostics bag with a big chunk of the table, stating that doctors had to pull that out from his buttocks. This crowd was awful and didn't react as properly to their segment. It seems like anyone interacting with the New Day would end up having fun. Xavier performed Rusev's theme on his trombone! And Summer Rae came off incredibly likable here, plus she saved Xavier's trombone when he was knocked out from the ropes. The New Day and Rusev winning made the heels look strong and added more character to Rusev, who enjoyed being in their company.
Seth Rollins lost to John Cena, who retained his US Champion title, because LOLCENAWINS. Seth FREAKING Rollins has lost twice in a row. Seriously, what are they doing to him? At least, this finally concludes their feud so that Cena can possibly do more US Open Challenges. Rollins, on the other hand, has to deal with Kane and possibly Sheamus, who keeps teasing that he'll cash in on him on any chance that he gets. After losing to Cena, Kane talks to Rollins from the titantron, being all chipper until he gets all serious. From there, we finally see what Kane is up to; he's just messing with Seth Rollins. While Rollins was distracted by Kane's entrance theme, he failed to notice Kane popping up from the ring canvas. Rollins made this cheesy segment enjoyable with his over-the-top selling but what was the point of the segment?
We're back to that cycle where Rollins is coming off a PPV win, the Authority are either building him up or putting him down, and Rollins would flounder or barely win in his RAW and Smack Down! matches for 3 weeks until the PPV. Rollins is not booked as a chicken shit heel anymore, who would do anything to win. He's actually coming off as being resilient and almost sympathetic. This might be the slow burn that they're working with Rollins; that the Authority is just going to push and push Rollins to see if he'll break.
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