"You deserve it!": Monday Night RAW (6/20/16)

For the first time in a long while, a babyface champ - a genuine underdog with organic and consistent fan support - graced Monday Night RAW. WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dean Ambrose (that sounds really good to say) was greeted with "You deserve it" chants before addressing the WWE Universe. He talked about hard work pays off. Ambrose wondered aloud that if Seth Rollins is "The Man," Roman Reigns is "The Guy," does that make him "The Dude?" The crowd agreed and Dean liked it and said call me whatever you like but call me "Champion." Reigns comes out amidst boos to congratulate Ambrose and reminded him of his rematch clause. Then Rollins comes out amidst cheers screaming that he beat Reigns so he gets a rematch clause. Interrupting Shane O Mac sets up Reigns and Rollins as the main event, where the winner will face Ambrose at Battleground next month. The results can be found here.

This was an enjoyable Monday Night RAW, although more time was spent on promos again and there was less time for the wrestling matches. They also addressed the upcoming Raw/Smack Down Draft, which will take place when Smack Down goes live on 7/19. To further emphasized how important this draft was, the first match of the night with Zayn and Owens showcased why these bitter rivals needed to be separated. Zayn got a win but Owens continued to beat him down after the match ended and even when they came back from commercial break. There was also the addition of the RAW and Smack Down podiums on top of the ramp, meaning WWE will be welcoming back a number of former general managers vying for the position for each brand. Hell, even John "People Power" Laurinitis returned before Shane told him that he would be running Smack Down.

The one segment I was not happy with was the women's division, where for some reason, Charlotte is defending the title against Paige. It wasn't a 3-minute squash match but it felt poorly paced and was full of botches, notably from Dana Brooke. Paige loses to Charlotte and all of a sudden Sasha Banks shows up, coming to her aid to chase off Charlotte and Dana. Look, I like Sasha but I hate that they kept her away from TV for a long time and now she's gunning for the title again. Meanwhile, poor Becky Lynch is getting beaten up by newly turned heel Natalya.

Speaking of returns, Bray Wyatt returned with Erick Rowan and Braun Strowman. Luke Harper is still out with a serious injury. Wyatt was interrupted by The New Day, which prompted him to come up with a chant on his own: New Day... Falls. This is a very weird yet interesting match-up so if they really are going ahead with this feud, they need to find the right balance for both teams to make this convincing.

Reigns and Rollins' main event match had Ambrose sitting on commentary and man, he was on fire. He put his former brothers over and showed how fiercely protective he is of his title. "Karma's a bitch and I'm WWE World Heavyweight Champion." As for the match, it was actually better than their match from MITB, save for a failed spot where the table didn't break when Reigns tackled Rollins. The two were unable to get back into the ring before the 10-count, resulting in a draw. The crowd wasn't happy with that so Shane came out and said we still need a contender. Ambrose gets into the ring and tells Shane he'll take them both on right now. Shane admires Dean as a fighting champion and decides to set up all former Shield members in a Triple Threat as the main event at Battleground. Ambrose happily accepts and goes up to both of his exhausted brothers and starts trash-talking them. Reigns gets up and tries to talk to Ambrose, who quickly turns around hits him with Dirty Deeds, which actually scares Rollins. Rollins tries to Pedigree a weakened Reigns after Ambrose left the ring, only to be hit from behind as Ambrose hits him with Dirty Deeds too.

So on top of them finally building excitement for the draft, the big takeaway is that the "WrestleMania-worthy" Shield Triple Threat is actually happening. There's a lot of complaints that the event is being wasted on what's considered a B-PPV event. However, the brand extension is heavily hinting that Reigns, Ambrose, and Rollins might get separated, so Battleground might very well be their last time to be on the same roster together. This is going to be an interesting month for Ambrose, who's now going to shoulder the pressure and responsibilities as a WWE Champ and as the face of the company. He is going to get even more attention now. On top of that, his wonderful cheerleader of a girlfriend Renee is comfortably and proudly posting more pics of Ambrose. I'm not too worried about Ambrose if he ends up dropping the title at Battleground, I just want to see him have a good run as an official champ.

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HEY, SO BREAKING NEWS. 

ROMAN REIGNS WAS SUSPENDED.

HE'LL STILL BE AT BATTLEGROUND.

"Ambrose Asylum: Electric Boogaloo": Monday Night RAW (6/13/16)

This is it. This is the go-home show of Monday Night RAW. Usually go-home shows are notoriously bad for having significantly less wrestling matches, backstage segments, and promos and sadly, that was the case here - there was reportedly less than 1 hour of in-ring wrestling in the 3 hours of RAW. Still, this show did as much as it can to create hype for MITB this Sunday while also addressing the impending roster draft and brand extension. The results can be found here.

The New Day and Enzo and Cass kicked off RAW to a weird start, with Cass telling Xavier that Enzo has put his lips all over Francesca the other night. It resulted in an amusing argument full of double entendres, resulting in Xavier Woods yelling "I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO BLOWS MY GIRL!" at Enzo's face. The Vaudvillains and The Club (sans AJ Styles) would come out to argue, which lead to be the first match of the night. The New Day has reached a point where they don't need the titles anymore so there's a good chance that they're going to lose their tag team titles very soon with the brand extension coming up.

Ever since Seth Rollins' shocking return at Extreme Rules and immediately being made the main event for MITB, there was very little reason to invest in his and Roman Reigns' feud. It was hampered by the fact that Rollins was still a chickenshit heel, even though his WWE: 24 Documentary painted him as a sympathetic babyface. On top of that, Rollins and Reigns never wrestled in the ring since the announcement and their story was only explained in video packages. That task fell upon Dean Ambrose and his talk show (which was brought back by Shane) to hype up their feud. The trios on-screen dynamic was great to see again. It was an excellent segment that re-established their history as The Shield and reminded the audience why this main event is important. Even better, Ambrose presented him as a threat to both of them, saying that if he wins MITB, he could just cash in and be the new champ.

Funny enough, the match that truly feels like a main event is AJ Styles vs John Cena. There was a bit of confusion as to why there was a contract signing, despite no title being on the line. Turns out Cena presented 2 contracts for Styles to sign; Cena vs The Club (barring The Club from ringside) or Cena vs Styles. Prior to the signing, Cena talked up Styles in a respectful manner, even name-dropping PWG, ROH, and NJPW (TNA was not mentioned) from his body of work. Styles, on the other hand, said that if he had stayed with WWE, he would be the 15-time World Champion because and beat Cena's "K-Mart shopping ass." Even though Styles turned heel recently, this feud doesn't feel rushed at all. Chalk it up to Cena and Styles performance and past body of work to give his a "big fight" feel.

Speaking of MITB, the entrants all got involved at the end of RAW with Ambrose vs Jericho as the main event, Cesaro being the ring announcer, Albert Del Rio being the timekeeper and Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens on commentary. It was wonderfully chaotic after Ambrose got another win over Jericho, who wisely grabbed a ladder and set it in the middle of the ring to grab the briefcase.

There are other matches and segments that happened but it's not really worth looking into. I mean, Sheamus and Apollo was just added as another pre-show match. And the women's division was represented in another rushed match where Paige got a win over Charlotte, thanks to Dana interfering. The women's title is not on the line, it's just a 4-women tag team match. Oh, and the IC title is not on the line either because The Miz is filming "Marine 5."

So that's the card for this Sunday. Seriously can't wait to be there! I'm pretty convinced that Ambrose isn't going to win (he's never won a match at MITB) but I won't stop cheering for him.

• Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship
• John Cena vs. AJ Styles
• Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. Chris Jericho vs. Cesaro vs. Alberto Del Rio in a Money in the Bank ladder match
• New Day vs. Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson vs. Enzo Amore and Big Cass vs. The Vaudevillains in a four-way for the WWE Tag Team Championship
• Rusev vs. Titus O’Neil for the U.S. Championship
• Charlotte and Dana Brooke vs. Becky Lynch and Natalya
• Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin in a Kickoff Show match
• Sheamus vs. Apollo Crews in a Kickoff Show match

"This is important": Monday Night RAW (6/6/16)

Monday Night RAW kicked off with the most unique opening segment I've ever seen in a long time. Rather than the usual shot of the venue with the pyro going off, it started with Dean Ambrose walking towards the ring, where all 5 of the MITB entrants are perched upon 6 tall ladders, surrounding the MITB briefcase. They all had a funny banter on who was going to win, with Jericho reminding everybody who created this match before it devolved with everyone getting down from the ladders and beating each other up. This lead to a surprise appearance by the infamous former Smack Down general manager, Teddy Long. He tossed out interesting ideas for tag team matches before Stephanie McMahon interrupted him to get all entrants in 3 singles matches (Jericho vs Cesaro, Alberto Del Rio vs Sami Zayn, and Ambrose vs Kevin Owens). The results can be found here.

The other best segment of the night was the banter between AJ Styles, and John Cena. It was not just a typical heel talking down a face. There was a sense of truth in their promo, such as Cena calling Styles a dud for coming to WWE despite being heralded as the "hero of sports entertainment" and Styles flat out saying to Cena that "guys like you bury guys like me." Cena has somehow enlisted the help of The New Day to help him out, which makes sense considering Gallows and Anderson started feuding with them. Speaking of tag teams, thanks to a wonderful idea by Teddy Long, Stephanie added another match for MITB. There will a Fatal 4 Way for the title with The New Day, The Club, Enzo and Cass, and The Vaudevillains.

The absolute worst segment of the night goes to, no surprise, the women's division. Charlotte uncharacteristically issued an apology to the WWE Universe on how she treated her father but still maintained why she had to do it. She mentions that she took in Dana Brooke to be her protege, which saddens me that they had to go this route with her since Emma is still injured. Natalya and Becky came out to try to sway Dana from siding with Charlotte and of course, it doesn't work. There was dead silence for this segment and it pretty much showed that this whole Charlotte and Natalya feud is quickly getting stale. In a 3 hour show, there was no room for any women's wrestling. Not even for freaking Sasha Banks.

Neither Reigns or Rollins made an appearance tonight, which meant the world title was taking a break this week in favor of the MITB feud and Cena vs Styles. They ran 2 lengthy video packages that revisted their history together as The Shield as well as the beginning of their feud from their perspective. Rollins' video package incorporated some segments from his WWE: 24 documentary, which actually made Rollins come off a little different now than his chickenshit heel persona before his injury. No longer backed by The Authority, Rollins wants to prove that he can beat Reigns and he's been waiting 2 years to do it. Reigns video package, on the other hand, conveniently skipped his first 2 title reigns and his reliance on Ambrose and The Usos, despite him saying that he now stands alone. They even showed his WM 32 moment where he holds up the title to a thunderous applause that was clearly edited in. This was a great to build up their feud (and prevent Reigns from getting booed for cutting another promo) than that silly silent treatment they did last week.

To be honest, despite how this episode got mixed reactions by AV Club, I personally enjoyed it. Well, most of it anyways. I do want to note that Ambrose is being heavily featured again. He had a quick backstage segment with Owens, where he noted that Ambrose seems to be going off at the deep end more than usual. In addition to making another appearance on Sports Center with Coach, he has a scheduled match with Jericho on Smack Down. And the previous cancelled Ambrose Asylum (the talk show, not the cage match) returns for the go-home show with 2 very special guests. Once again, Ambrose is being positioned as the favorite to win MITB and they're making it obvious. It's funny that everyone wants to see this happen and knowing WWE, they'll go in a completely different direction and delay pulling the trigger on Ambrose. If he doesn't win, I'm fine with Owens, Zayn or Cesaro walking away with the briefcase.

"A Title I Never Lost": Monday Night RAW (5/23/16)

Seth Freaking Rollins kicked off the special 1200th episode of Monday Night RAW because of course he would. Rollins went at length about how he's back to take back the title he never lost and that even though he got a lot of loving fan support, he doesn't need anybody to win (plus he threw all the fan letters in the trash and set it on fire!) His former brother, Roman Reigns would show up with the title, prompting Shane McMahon to come out and quickly setting both Reigns and Rollins as the main event for the upcoming Money In The Bank PPV. The rest of the show focused on 5 MITB qualifying matches. The results can be found here.

Want to know the best part of Rollins' return? They significantly downplayed Reigns. Yes, Reigns came out with the title and trash talked (off mic) with Rollins but other than that, he didn't say a word. He didn't even cut his usual "THE GUY" promo. All the talking was done by Rollins and Shane, who had to give a rundown for the audience on what Rollins has accomplished prior to his injury. Rollins reappeared in a backstage segment with Renee but got distracted when he saw Stephanie. He went in for a hug but Stephanie stopped him, saying that a lot has changed and so has their business relationship. Rollins did state he didn't need anybody, so it was telling how sad he looked when he didn't get a warm welcome from his "mother."

Unlike last year's MITB, which drew criticism for hastily putting in Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, Neville, Roman Reigns, Randy Orton and Kane, this year, they made the effort to have those entrants earn those spots in qualifying matches. 5 spots were filled tonight with 2 heels and 3 faces. No word if the remaining 2 spots will happen on Smack Down or next week's RAW.

• Zayn defeated Sheamus (who randomly started to feud with Apollo Crews)
• Cesaro defeated The Miz
• Jericho defeated Apollo Crews (who no sold the beatdown he got from Sheamus backstage)
• Ambrose defeated Ziggler (in a technical match)
• Owens defeated AJ Styles (CLEAN!)
  

This lineup is already interesting for several reasons: Cesaro is going to put on a spectacular show as usual. Owens and Zayn are involved so there's a damn good chance they're just going to find any opportunity to beat each other again. Ambrose and Jericho are squaring off again, meaning there's a scary chance Jericho could screw Ambrose over and win the match he created 11 years ago.

• RAW also marked the much-welcome return of Big Cass' tag team partner, Enzo, which meant they were resuming their feud against "Bub and Devon Dud." Enzo addressed the concussion and said it was a hard sneeze. I'm now extra worried for Enzo.
  
  
• Not sure if this is will be an actual feud, or it might be WWE's way of trying to quickly move on from Adam Rose being released, but the Social Outcasts attacked New Day as they were celebrating Raw's 1200th episode. Oddly enough, there were signs of The Vaudevillains.
  
  
• Charlotte, Dana, and Ric came out for an in-ring segment about the state of the Women's Title. It got off to a very shaky start, mostly because Charlotte got annoyed with the crowd chants, but Charlotte finally split from Ric Flair. She addressed the issues of how everyone thought she couldn't win without Ric and she wanted to prove them all wrong. This prompted Ric to cry of course and tearfully leave. Looks like Charlotte is making her own version of the BFFs with Dana on her side.
  
  
• Styles and Owens was the main event qualifying match. Before it started, Styles came out to praise Reigns for being a worthy opponent (the audience booed of course) but he also talked down about Gallows, Anderson, and The Usos for interfering and costing him the match. Gallows and Anderson came out to confront Styles and ended with him breaking up with The Club. Gallows and Anderon didn't take this split amicably.

This was a great episode of RAW that's quickly establishing the next PPV with matches and storylines that will organically build towards it. Now the biggest question is who will win the briefcase. Prior to Rollins' return, the popular choice for getting the briefcase was Owens just so he can screw with Zayn and Reigns. But when JBL mentioned on commentary about the possibility of all 3 Shield members being in the title picture, now it's shifting to Ambrose to be the favorite to win.

Speaking of which, Ambrose seems to have a slight attitude change following Extreme Rules. His match against Ziggler was technical, just like their previous match for the Survivor Series WHC tournament, and he looked quite serious. His fallout interview however showed Ambrose coming off quite indifferent. Seems to foreshadow something here.