Braun Strowman’s return from injury way, way ahead of schedule, Big Cass’ earth-shattering reveal that he is the one responsible for the backstage attacks on Enzo Amore and another prospective locker-room-emptying brawl between Samoa Joe and Brock Lesnar are on everyone’s minds as we inch closer ever closer to Great Balls of Fire.
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Now just two weeks from the pay-per-view, both Samoa Joe and Brock Lesnar would be looking to maim the other sufficiently so that they arrive at the match physically and mentally compromised. Will Kurt Angle allow that to happen?
And Enzo Amore has an equally imposing battle to fight as well – both against himself and his former Tag Team partner – Big Cass. How will he fare against all the odds?
Speaking of which, after getting infamously flipped over in an Ambulance, Roman Reigns is faced with a tall order himself to navigate the challenge of Braun Strowman again.
Bearing riveting developments in all these storylines and more, here is our preview of this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw.
#1 How will Enzo Amore recover?
One mystery was solved last week when it was revealed, heart-breakingly for Enzo Amore, that Big Cass was the perpetrator of the hideous backstage sneak attacks on the diminutive trash talker.
And such was the intensity in the outpouring of scorn from Big Cass that Enzo was left literally in tears.
But as the emphatic big boot made clear, this is no time for him to wallow in self-pity. He has to quickly pick himself back up and be at his fighting best as Cass is fully capable of inflicting further injury on him.
Also, will his social media ‘beef’ against Conor McGregor actually develop into something? Rumours abound that the buccaneering Irishman may even appear on WWE programming shortly.
#2 “I’m not finished with you!”
The last thing Roman Reigns would have expected while detailing his plans for WWE SummerSlam last week on Raw, would have been Braun Strowman’s premature return from injury. Initially, the Monster Among Men was scheduled to be out for around six months.
Clearly, he doesn’t play by the rules. And he also made it quite clear that he isn’t finished with Reigns either.
Now awaiting another punishing encounter against the behemoth at Great Balls of Fire, will Roman dig down deep again and hold off Strowman’s challenge again? Or will Strowman, mind teeming with revenge, manage to punish Reigns in the lead up to the pay-per-view?
This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw will have the answers.
#3 Man vs God
Bray Wyatt’s modus operandi is simple.
He methodically chips away at the psyche of his opponents with his tricks and cryptic promises of doom, leaving them distracted and vulnerable to physical assault. And although he may not have any of the Wyatt Family members left to do his dirty work anymore, he is still fully capable of wrecking his adversaries on his own.
Seth Rollins, however, is a Man who has no time for the Gods, as he proved with his clever sneak attack last week.
But while he thinks he probably made a statement to Wyatt with a touch of subterfuge, what he probably doesn’t realise is that he’s already been drawn into Bray Wyatt’s web of mind games inadvertently.
How will the Face of Fear react to Rollins’ perceived show of strength last week? And lulled by a sense of over confidence, will Rollins be all the more susceptible to the backlash?
#4 A new Angle?
While Big Cass revealed himself as the mastermind behind the backstage attacks last week on Raw, the source of the mysterious messages that have had Kurt Angle and Corey Graves huddled in hurried conference has yet to be revealed.
What is so important in those messages that Corey Graves has to abandon his commentary duties to attend to them? Conversely, what is so incriminating in them that Kurt Angle is so secretive about the whole issue?
Is this leading up to the beginning of the reintroduction of the Authority? Or is it someone completely from the left field who is behind them?
Perhaps this week’s episode of Raw will answer that question.
#5 A Beastly Proposition
Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman know by now, that unlike most of his other opponents, Samoa Joe is no pushover.
The Samoan Submission Machine does not seem in the least bit intimidated by Brock Lesnar, displayed by blatantly choking out his advocate and following it up by getting in the Beast’s face and inciting a brawl.
This week, the two behemoths will again cross paths on Monday Night Raw. And regardless of what plans either man has for the other, perhaps there is a case to be made that the man who will have to be on his toes throughout the show is Raw’s GM, Kurt Angle.
Both Joe and Lesnar can wreak destruction and if they were to go at it again, and who’s to say that the whole locker room would be enough to hold them off this time around? As it is, it almost wasn’t enough the last time either.
Destruction beckons on Monday Night Raw.
