"Take me to Suplex City, baby!": Monday Night RAW (2/2/16)

What a freaking opening. Rather than get treated to another opening monologue from The Authority, out comes Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman. Heyman briefly mentions the Wyatt Family taking on Lesnar and removing him from the Royal Rumble. He then mentions the main even of Fastlane which sees Brother vs Brother vs Beast, that Lesnar will F5 both of them and go on to take on HHH at Wrestlemania. Heyman then proceeds to talk down about Ambrose, which prompted him to come out and stand toe-to-toe with Lesnar. He cuts the most confidant, passionate, and defiant promo, almost never taking his eyes off from Lesnar. Ambrose knows he doesn't stand a chance but it's not going to stop the "Iron Man of WWE."

And from there, RAW somewhat falls apart. The results can be found here.

The few highlights for me were:

• Stephanie planting the seeds of dissension between Reigns and Ambrose in a backstage segment, where the WWE WHC belt ("BELT!" THEY SAID "BELT!") was on display and not being carried about by HHH. WWE seems to be teasing a heel turn between the two again. Also, godammit Reigns, would it kill you to be at least UPSET that you lost your title to The Authority again?
• Kevin Owens and Ziggler had a match again. Thank to 50/50 booking, Ziggler gets a win over Owens this week. It's a great match but it felt so directionless, especially for Owens.
• The MizTV segment consisted of The Miz completely taking over and now allowing AJ to speak. He put AJ over so much that he got the crowd to cheer for him until he started talking him down. AJ gets back and beats the crap out of Miz, setting up a match for them on Smack Down.
• Team BAD officially broke up, which was odd considering the breakup happened on Smack Down last week in a backstage segment. They repeated the breakup again, this time with Naomi and Tamina getting mic time. They interfered in Sasha's match, causing her AND Becky fighting off Tamina and Naomi (and their match resulting in a DQ). This was a badly scripted but it allowed Sasha to be herself again.
• NEW DAY HAS ACKNOWLEDGED AMBREIGNS ON TUMBLR. TUMBLR MELTDOWN COMMENCE. I'm aware of this fandom and I block that smut when I tag lurk. I did laugh at the fact that Ambrose got spanked by Big E during the abdominal stretch (he usually hits them on their sides) and Ambrose looked pretty angry.

Overrall, this was an all right episode of RAW. It focused a lot more on Ambrose and Lesnar while Reigns is being significantly downplayed. It seems like WWE might be trying to cool off on Reigns a bit (he was replaced by HHH on the cover for the DVD/Blu-Ray release of Royal Rumble), which might be a good thing for now. I had no interest in the main event because it felt like it was already decided; that Lesnar would be taken out by the Wyatt Family and Ambrose will get pinned by Reigns, who would go on to face HHH. Throwing Ambrose in just adds the possibility of a different ending... or is that false hope?

BIG E SPANKING THE AMBOOTY