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The night after SummerSlam and WWE have certainly stacked their card full of surprises. After a somewhat disappointing pay-per-view full of screwy finishes and botched spots, it seems WWE kept all the excitement for Monday Night Raw, when the company really needed it most.
Firstly Brock Lesnar comes out and issues a challenge for the Undertaker, not for the next PPV, not for Survivor Series but right now. If only the Undertaker was there and could have answered the call, instead we get a beat down of Bo Dallas. Mick Foley was right when he said “think of the promo’s”, Heyman once again proving he is a lyricist on the microphone. The only downside now is the wait until we see Brock Lesnar again.
Coming out of the opening segment we get a tag team match and some fine trumpeting from Xavier Woods as the New Day beat the Lucha Dragons. The tag division has been so boring lately, the teams have the in ring ability but they just don’t have the style or the voice to be able to pull off the complete package. Then BOOM! Welcome to Dudleyville. They’re back. Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley came out and beat down New Day, putting Woods through a table.
Bubba and D-Von looked good, although we’ll see if they can keep up with the pace of these high fliers once they get into some matches. But finally the tag team division is getting a kick up the backside that it needed. The Brooklyn crowd was on fire and there really wasn’t a better place the Dudley boys could have made their return. D-Von! Get the tables!
Unfortunately the #DivasRevolution appears to have died already. The crowd baying for Sasha as Team PCB and Team Bella had an altercation on MizTV. There is a distinct lack of storyline here, whilst we have Divas going at it, what is the point? No one seems to be challenging Nikki for the title and all the teams are just trading wins/losses. We need to start to see people going for the title, each faction needs to start focusing on one another in a more rivalled mode. Let’s see Sasha against Nikki, Becky against Brie, Paige against Naomi, get each into a specific rivalry, fighting for themselves and not their team. The revolution needs more spice.
The Wyatt Family debuted a new member, sadly it wasn’t Leo Kruger, but it was a curious amalgamation of both Harper, Rowan and Wyatt. He had the height of Rowan, the beard of Harper and the face and body of Bray. A curious looking fellow, Braun Strowman, he certainly fits in with the Wyatt family look but he hasn’t got a long history of professional wrestling, so I expect Reigns and Ambrose to make him look good. Will the former Shield brothers now get a third man to even the odds? Rollins isn’t coming back anytime soon, so who’s next on the NXT roster to make the call up?
Jon Stewart told us why he screwed over John Cena, he didn’t want Cena to tie Nature Boy Ric Flair for the most titles ever held. It’s a record that is going to be broken and thankfully Cena laid out Stewart with an Attitude Adjustment after Stewart had rambled his way through a segment.
What is going to happen to John Cena now? Two SummerSlam defeats in a row and now no title to hold. He can’t really take any time off as there is no one who can match him on promo’s outside of Paul Heyman and there are no established talents really left on the roster. But Cena needs a credible opponent and I don’t know who that could be. Unless somehow he gets involved in the Intercontinental Title picture now that the Miz/Big Slow storyline has run it’s course, or perhaps he could challenge Sheamus for the briefcase. Someone needs to get that briefcase off of him, he’s never going to work as Mr. Money in the Bank.
Actually, that could work. The Authority deny Cena from getting another title shot to equal Ric Flair’s total so he has to find another way. Take the briefcase from Sheamus after a couple of months and then go after Rollins again. Might even help elevate Sheamus a little bit which he didn’t get from Orton.
That assumes of course that Rollins is still the champion after the next PPV as the closing segment of Raw hit us with another shocker. The Vigilante Sting is back! It’s about time they used him again although going up against the Authority – again – will surely end in just being buried by Triple H over and over. “I beat you at WrestleMania, you’re over, get out of here!” And what has Sting got to come back with?
Overall a Raw packed with exciting OMG moments. There weren’t many matches to talk about, the 8-man tag is really just a “we’ve run out of ideas” move. Unless somehow they’re going to keep this going until Survivor Series, everyone needs to move on from these feuds now, except maybe Ziggler and Rusev…but they need to move from fighting over the women.