WWE RAW Preview: January 21st, 2019

Last week's RAW was a lot more interesting than we anticipated! It started off with Braun Strowman losing his Universal Championship opportunity at the Royal Rumble after destroying Vince McMahon's limousine.

Ronda Rousey and Sasha Banks teamed up to face Tamina & Nia Jax, beating them. However, the post-match interview saw Sasha Banks provoke Rousey and clear tension stir up between the two.

Nikki Cross seemingly made her debut, teaming up with Ember Moon and Bayley to take on the Riott Squad. Finn Balor was announced as one of the participants of a Fatal-4-way main event to determine Lesnar's Rumble opponent, but Balor had to defend it first against Jinder Mahal, beating him despite a pre-match attack.

Before the main event, Bobby Lashley won the Intercontinental Championship. In the main event, Finn Balor pinned John Cena to become Lesnar's new Royal Rumble opponent. With the end of the recap, let's take a look at what's next on RAW this week.

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#5 Finn Balor gets ready to take on The Beast

Finn Balor earned his shot last week

Finn Balor wasn't the favourite to face Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble. In fact, Vince McMahon was clearly reluctant to put Balor in the picture, seeing that Drew McIntyre, John Cena and Baron Corbin, three physically bigger superstars were in the ring.

Balor bluntly told McMahon that he never believed in him, and showed him rather than telling him why he deserved to be in contention. He would defend his contender's spot against Jinder Mahal and in his second match of the night, had to go through three other elite superstars.

Ultimately, Balor prevailed and pinned John Cena. Cena endorsed Balor, telling him that he has another believer. With there being only one episode of RAW to the Royal Rumble, will Balor confront The Beast Incarnate?

#4 What's next for Braun Strowman?

Last week, Braun Strowman proclaimed that he was all fit and ready to take on Brock Lesnar at the Rumble. Baron Corbin came out to provoke him, and Strowman chased him backstage. This led to Mr McMahon's limo being in the way. Strowman ended up damaging it to try to get to Corbin, but he was confronted by none other than Mr McMahon himself.

McMahon told Strowman that he would be fined a $100,000 and that his Universal title shot against Brock Lesnar would be taken away from him. An infuriated Strowman did what he does best when he's angry - flip vehicles over. He flipped the limo over and stormed off.

With his Universal title shot taken away from him, high chance is that he's going to return and cause havoc on RAW tonight. If not tonight, then very soon. But it's going to be interesting to see what Strowman has to say or do.

#3 Lashley begins his Intercontinental title reign

At long last, Bobby Lashley has gold in WWE again. It seems long overdue, especially given that he should have been in the Universal title picture around summer last year. Either way, it's paid off for him, and last week, he defeated Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins in a Triple threat match to win the Intercontinental Championship.

This cut short Ambrose's reign to just a few weeks, and it's even more interesting because Lashley essentially forced himself into the Intercontinental title picture after he attacked Seth Rollins during his 2-out-of-3 falls IC title match against Dean Ambrose a couple of weeks ago.

However, Lashley now finds himself as Intercontinental Champion, and with the immediate rematch clause being a thing of the past, Ambrose is going to have to earn his way back. We could very well end up seeing a heel vs heel rivalry for the Intercontinental title. But first, the focus is on the Rumble.

#2 The NXT call-ups are ready to make an impact!

Last week, Nikki Cross was the first of the announced NXT call-ups to make their debut. She joined Bayley and Ember Moon to defeat The Riott Squad. However, this wasn't Cross' main roster debut technically speaking.

She did face Becky Lynch a while back on SmackDown Live before going back to NXT. Either way, we've been seeing all of the call-ups around, with EC3 and Lacey Evans being spotted backstage both on RAW and SmackDown. Even Heavy Machinery made a surprise appearance in Alexa Bliss' "Moment of Bliss" segment with Paul Heyman. They also appeared on the opening segment of SmackDown Live, but the less spoken about that, the better.

Either way, we've seen all of them barring Lars Sullivan. It's going to be interesting to see who debuts this week. We could be seeing up to 3 massive debuts on RAW!

#1 A Rowdy tag team match-up!

A rowdy main event!

What a match this is going to be! Ronda Rousey and Natalya team up to face Sasha Banks and Bayley. Last week, Rousey and Banks teamed up in a successful effort, but there was a lot of post-match tension.

You could probably attribute it to Banks trying to get in Rousey's head, something she's known to do with opponents. Rousey seems flustered but she's going to be more determined than ever to beat Banks and Bayley.

Remember, while Banks is now vying for the RAW Women's Championship, she also has the goal of becoming the first-ever WWE Women's Tag Team Champions along with Bayley at Elimination Chamber.

Things are going to get really interesting and remember - if Natalya gets pinned, Ronda Rousey's perfect undefeated streak in WWE comes to an end. We predict that this is exactly what's going to happen, as Rousey is unlikely going to take the fall. Will the streak end? Find out on RAW tonight!

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