5 Takeaways from this week's WWE Raw (25 June 2018)

Seven matches took place as WWE Monday Night Raw emanated from San Diego, California this week.

The show began with Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley suffering a surprise defeat against The Revival, while the second match saw Curtis Axel defeat Matt Hardy three weeks before The B-Team and The Deleters of Worlds battle for the Raw Tag Team titles at Extreme Rules.

The Authors of Pain were also in action, defeating local talents Rich & Rex Gibson, and Ronda Rousey’s friend and training partner, Natalya, was able to make Alexa Bliss tap out in a one-on-one match following a distraction from Alexa’s Extreme Rules opponent, Nia Jax.

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Elsewhere on the show, the latest chapter in the Sasha Banks vs. Bayley rivalry saw the latter launch a brutal post-match attack on her frenemy following their loss against The Riott Squad, while Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens defeated the equally dysfunctional Finn Balor and Baron Corbin in a tag match via count out.

In the main event, Seth Rollins looked on course to regain the Intercontinental Championship against Dolph Ziggler until Drew McIntyre caused a disqualification, prompting Reigns to come to his fellow Shield member’s aide.

In this article, we take a look at five things we learned from this week’s episode.

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#5 Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns are not the guys to dethrone Brock Lesnar

Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns faced The Revival

After a “disagreement in contract negotiations” with Brock Lesnar, Raw General Manager Kurt Angle revealed at the start of this week’s show that the planned multi-man match at Extreme Rules to determine a #1 contender for the Universal Championship will no longer take place.

Instead, the rivalry between Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns stepped up a gear with both men trading heated insults before they teamed up for the second week in a row against The Revival. This time, however, a distracted Reigns suffered a rare pinfall loss when he was rolled up by Dash Wilder for the 1-2-3.

If it wasn’t clear before, the crowd reaction to both men this week showed that neither one of them should be the one to dethrone Lesnar as Universal champion. The San Diego fans barely reacted when Reigns and Lashley were touted as the next champ, with both ‘babyfaces’ receiving less-than-favourable receptions in the opening segment.

#4 There needs to be an Ultimate Deletion tag match!

Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt are the Raw Tag Team champions

It was announced on this week’s episode of Raw that B-Team members Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas will finally get their opportunity at the Raw Tag Team titles when they face Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt at Extreme Rules.

So far, the brief segments we’ve seen between these two teams have been simply WONDERFUL, with Axel and Dallas producing some of their best work in WWE during their hilarious impersonations of their upcoming opponents.

Assuming this rivalry, which is already the best WWE tag-team storyline of the year, receives a stipulation at Extreme Rules, it would be great to see the teams battle it out in an Ultimate Deletion match at the Hardy Compound.

#3 The Authors of Pain should not be running away from Titus Worldwide

Why did Akam and Rezar hide from Titus Worldwide?

Competing in their first match on Raw in almost two months, The Authors of Pain made light work of rookies Rich & Rex Gibson, defeating them in destructive fashion inside two minutes with their Last Chapter finisher.

Following Akam and Rezar’s victory, Titus O’Neil and Apollo ran down to the ring to save the two local talents from further punishment post-match, prompting the two members of AOP to hurry their way through the ropes to avoid a confrontation with Titus Worldwide.

While the commentary team explained that AOP were simply “picking their battles” and decided they didn’t want to fight Titus and Apollo at that particular time, the monstrous duo were still made to look incredibly weak when they essentially ran away from one of the least intimidating tag teams on the roster.

#2 Baron Corbin is better than ever

Baron Corbin was named "Constable" of Raw earlier in June

A few weeks ago, many WWE fans would have put Baron Corbin in the same bracket as the recently released Big Cass: a tall, long-haired bad guy who competes in similar matches every week without being part of a main-event storyline.

Fast forward to now and Corbin, complete with short hair and new authority figure attire, is more interesting than ever as the new “Constable” of Monday Night Raw, hired specifically by Stephanie McMahon to help General Manager Kurt Angle in his duties.

“The Lone Wolf”, who teamed with Finn Balor in a losing effort against Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens on this week’s Raw, is yet to gain the respect of WWE fans since his main-roster call-up over two years ago, but this new role will definitely help the audience connect with him more as a character.

#1 Seth Rollins should be headlining PPVs

Seth Rollins is likely to receive a rematch against Dolph Ziggler

This week’s main event saw Seth Rollins attempt to win back the Intercontinental Championship from Dolph Ziggler, only for Drew McIntyre to get involved in one of the most exciting Raw matches of the year to cause a disqualification.

“The Kingslayer” is producing some of the best matches of his career right now and it seems a waste to have such a gifted in-ring talent away from the PPV main-event scene for so long – he hasn’t regularly headlined PPVs since 2015 – when he could be closing major events with legitimate contenders for Match of the Year.

Looking back at the one-on-one main-roster PPV main events over the last 18 months, the only one that fans universally enjoyed was Brock Lesnar vs. Samoa Joe at Great Balls of Fire, and even then some questioned why it only took one F5 to win the match.

Now, if WWE can figure out a way to take the Universal Championship from Lesnar, there would be no better person to hold the title as a regular PPV headliner than Rollins.