WWE Raw came to us from the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas last night and with a stellar fatal-4-way main event, the show didn’t disappoint. The show was strong throughout and featured some great match and some really fun segments. Bayley was on Raw again this week and teamed up with the New Day in what seems to be the perfect pairing.
Sheamus and Cesaro continued their best of 7 series and Titus O’ Neil continued his underwhelming run. We also got an update on Sasha Banks and a great match between Neville and Chris Jericho. Then came the main event and what a main event it was.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the 6 points to note:
6: Darren Young and Titus O’ Neil put on a stinker
This match was one of the most underwhelming matches in Raw history. Both competitors came out to crickets from the audience who just didn’t care and treated this match like the toilet-break match that it was meant to be. The problem? The competitors looked like they felt it was a toilet-break match too and did nothing to put on a good show.
The match ended as underwhelmingly as it had begun, with Young rolling up Titus O’ Neil after the latter had dominated most of the match. Also, Titus is the worst trash talker of all time.
5: Sami Zayn is as directionless as ever
Sami Zayn may not have faced local enhancement talent like Nia Jax, but Jinder Mahal was no more than a jobber in their match. Although Jinder got a little bit of offence in, Sami dominated for most of the match and disposed of him easily.
It's distressing to see Sami this directionless just a month after he had a match of the year candidate with Kevin Owens at WWE Battleground. He didn’t do much on the road to SummerSlam, which is one of WWE’s biggest shows of the year and was hastily thrown into a pre-show tag-team match with Neville and the Dudley Boyz.
As for Jinder, it seems that he signed for WWE to take the “in-house jobber” role that Adam Rose had before he got fired. By the way, am I the only one who thinks that Jinder looks a little bit like Russell Peters?
4: Dana Brooke and The Club?
We saw a pre-taped vignette of Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson during Raw where they said that they used to be doctors but had now transferred to the retirement business. They said that they had finally sent the Dudley Boyz packing, once and for all, last week and they intended to set their eyes on The New Day’s tag-team championships again.
The vignette was entertaining in itself but the real talking point came when Dana Brooke joined Gallows and Anderson as their nurse. This is an interesting and unexpected turn and Dana Brooke could be the missing link that Gallows and Anderson need to get to the next level. We aren’t sure yet if this is a permanent pairing but it definitely should be. The dynamic between the three of them is awesome and it reminds us of what Alexa Bliss’ role was when she managed Blake and Murphy, the only difference being that Gallows and Anderson are much more over and are world-travelled performers.
3: Cesaro taps out
The best of 7 series between Cesaro and Sheamus took an unexpected turn tonight with Sheamus winning the second match to go 2-0 up in the series. He won the first of the series on the SummerSlam pre-show and followed it up tonight. The crowd was against Sheamus from the word go but Sheamus powered through to victory.
The match itself was pretty good but this is the Nth time we’ve seen this match in recent weeks and other than the finish, nothing in the match was really anything new. The ending sequence came after Sheamus back body dropped Cesaro outside the ring onto the apron and steel ring post in a devastating looking move. Cesaro sold his back like a boss after the move and it was so convincing that almost looked like he’d been injured.
Sheamus then rolled Cesaro back into the ring and locked in the Cloverleaf. What was surprising was the ease at which Cesaro tapped out.
With Sheamus now 2-0 up, things look bleak for Cesaro. However, being positioned as the underdog in the series will definitely help Cesaro. Things finally get a little interesting in this feud.
Cesaro himself took to twitter to confirm the news of his injury.
2: Paul Heyman’s ‘apology’
This was a weird segment for a multitude of reasons. First of all, Paul Heyman interfered while Stephanie was talking and no one does that. Secondly, he sort of talked down to Stephanie in the opening moments before she brought Heyman crashing back to earth.
The moment when Paul Heyman was counting the $1 bills to pay Brock’s fine was great, especially with Stephanie slapping the money right out of Heyman’s hands. The question marks over here are that since Stephanie fined Brock just $500, why didn’t Heyman begin his speech with such contempt? Yes, he showed her a lot of respect after Stephanie admonished him and when he grovelled his apology.
After the $500 fine last week, have WWE changed their minds on the storyline? Will we see a Stephanie vs Brock storyline? Well obviously Stephanie won’t fight Brock herself but you guys get what I mean.
1: Kevin Owens wins the Universal Championship, Triple H returns
Where do I begin with this one? The beginning would be the best place I suppose.
Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Kevin Owens and Big Cass squared up in the main even to determine the new WWE Universal Champion. The match itself was brilliant with each performer impressing, especially Big Cass, even though he was the first one to be eliminated.
Reigns, Rollins and Owens put on quite a show afterwards and got the crowd to their feet. Things exploded when Reigns was standing tall outside the ring after taking out Owens with a Superman Punch and Rollins with a spear. At this point, Triple H made his comeback to Raw for the first time since WrestleMania and WWE played this card perfectly. No one saw this coming.
He Pedigree-ed Roman on the outside and rolled him into the ring so that Seth could cover him. After Roman was eliminated he walked to the other side of the ring and rolled Owens into the ring.
Since Rollins used to the former protégé of Triple H, we all expected Owens to be the next one to be Pedigree-ed but WWE played all of us here. Triple H turned on Rollins and gave him the Pedigree to everyone’s surprise, including Kevin Owens.
Owens, still with an astounded look on his face, covered Rollins to win the WWE Universal Championship and echo in the era of Owens.
Owens as the top guy is definitely a good decision as it offers up fresh matches and this can truly be the start of a new era. With Triple H back we’ll definitely see him battle Reigns sometime, but will he continue to align with Owens?
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