Sami Zayn just referenced AEW on Raw! Ain’t no party like a Brock Lesnar party. And dear
God, it’s actually happening - Seth Rollins will be taking on Baron Corbin at Super Arabia.
And more WWE stars are potentially quitting the company
Click the timestamps in the video description below to go straight to any of those stories.
I’m Oli Davis - give us a subscribe, press the thumbs up button, and answer our question
of the day in the comments: How should WWE react to AEW? Because I’ll be replying to
people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE! And click the ‘i’ above my head to give your rating of the show
- where you can choose from: RawSome, Cor, AVRAWGE, Poor and RawFul - as I review the
27th May 2019 edition of Monday Night Raw!
Just two nights after All Elite Wrestling’s debut show, the biggest challenge to WWE’s
supremacy in almost two decades, Raw had to step up and answer the challenge. Which they
did… by not having a proper wrestling match until an hour and a half in. That’ll teach
them. After a recap of Dolph Ziggler attacking him
last Tuesday, Kofi Kingston challenged Brock Lesnar to cash-in the beefcase on him. Seth
answered instead, meaning we’ve got the WWE Champion out here, we’ve got the Universal
Champion out here. That can only mean one thing! A disappointing swerve tag match with
The Bar. Surprisingly, Brock actually showed up for
work for an unprecedented third time in 8 days, revealing his new customised Money in
the Boombox - which actually plays music, which Brock Lesnar is actually dancing along
to, while wearing a shirt that says ‘Brock Party’. Lesnar, I take back everything bad
I’ve ever said about you. Just when all was set for a dance-off to decide
who Brock cashes in on - spppports entertainment! - Seth walked off in disgust, so Lesnar postponed
his announcement yet again. Queue Ziggler brawling with Kingston and Xavier
Woods for the next 40 minutes. This angle went on far too long with Xavier saving Kofi,
then Kofi saving Xavier, then Ziggler cutting a promo - It should have been… a match by
now - which all ultimately didn’t play into the rest of the show.
Speaking of segments that went nowhere, Raw then cut back to The Usos’ Block Party going
on backstage, the second Block Party gimmick of the night because when WWE do something,
they either drop it immediately, or do it to death.
The skits included a brief tense staredown between Naomi and her former Welcoming Committee
foe Tamina, before they hugged and made up. But I thought there was no-one meaner than
Tamina? And then The Revival showed up to capitalise on the momentum of their fantastic
TV match last week… by trying to squash their tag team beef by playing party games.
The lame ‘pay off’ (in inverted commas) was R-Truth turning up for a bunch of people
trying to win his 24/7 title off him.
Then a mere hour into the show, we got our first wrestling match, and it was one involving
Shane McMahon. The OmniShane! After weirdly coming out once with Drew McIntyre,
exiting Lacey Evans style, and then coming back out again because heel heat I guess,
Shane brought out Reigns’ cousin Lance Anoa’i - whom Drew beat up before the bell, for Shane
to tap him out in a triangle. McMahonIntyre then proceeded to beat up Lance,
before Roman himself ran down for the save… a full five minutes after they first started
cheating. What a hero.
Then we got another in-ring promo… yay! But this one seems important, it’s where
Brock Lesnar will finally announce which champion he’s going to cash-in on. They’ve even
got a referee out there. But then Lesnar realised he’s got a full year to cash-in the briefcase
when Heyman read through the contract, so he just walked off.
It was a funny execution, but after dragging this out for the whole first half of the show,
and last week’s episode too, it got the wrong kind of heat. The kind of heat that
gets directed at WWE management for not being able to write good TV.
But don’t be annoyed by any of that, because here’s the zany 24/7 title - which just
a week into its existence, has already become a crutch for WWE not knowing how to end segments
properly.
AJ Styles revealed he’s suffering from a back injury next - when Baron Corbin ran in
and punched him in the face. PWInsider have reported this segment was actually taped in
advance, as AJ wasn’t at Raw and is genuinely banged up.
Then a mere one hour 40 minutes into the show, we got a proper match, with Becky Lynch and
Nikki Cross (sans Alexa Bliss storyline) beating the IIconics. Becky debuted her new finisher
the Man-Handle Slam for the win, which is just a bad-looking Rock Bottom. Lacey Evans
then walked out on the ramp, and then left again. I have not missed that gimmick.
Thankfully Ricochet beating Cesaro was easily the match of the night, with Cesaro the perfect
base for Ricochet’s incredibly impressive flippy moves, and unlike last week, Raw didn’t
have an adbreak every other move. Unfortunately the result is just 50/50 booking, flattening
out both men when they need to be built up.
Rey Mysterio’s US title announcement was bumped to next week’s show without explanation.
Next up we got a 4 way elimination match between Baron Corbin, The Miz, Bobby Lashley and Braun
Strowman (who I’m pretty sure have all been in the Midcard of Evil at one point or another
in the last year) to decide Seth’s Universal Championship match at Super Arabia. It actually
turned out to be a Fatal Four Way match, as Strowman and Lashley brawled out of the arena
- apparently ‘eliminating’ them despite it being No DQ - and Corbin pinning Miz after
an End of Days. Because not even all the money in Saudi Arabia
can escape the pull of Baron Corbin’s midcard vortex!
Bray Wyatt’s Firefly Fun House remains the most consistently excellent thing in WWE.
Here Bray named the new form he unveiled last week - the Fiend - and said he’s here to
protect us. But the real intrigue was in how this newly
Fiend-confident Bray treated Sister Abigail - who had previously been a bully. Instead
this time, she called Wyatt a sicko and begged him to let her rest as she’s just so tired.
Their relationship suddenly flipped from Abigail controlling and tormeting Bray, to it being
the other way around all along. She’s stuck in purgatory of limbo - which segwayed into
a creepy crab walk limbo party. Much better than an Usos party.
As Mick Foley promised us last week, the third hour of Raw is going to be dirty, it’s going
to be nasty, and it’s going to be slightly underlit in the crowd.
As part of this new third hour direction, Corey Graves debuted his Electric Chair segment
- a Q+A session with members of the audience and a WWE star sitting in a mock electric
chair. Kind of like a corporeal punishment interrogation segment just ten days before
they go to Saudi Arabia. I can’t see anything potentially backfiring about this segment.
Especially when your debut guest is Sami Zayn, the man reportedly not allowed on the Sauid
shows because of his Syrian descent! Sami eventually took the mic, shouted at the
crowd for not asking him better questions, and then said they could even ask him about
AEW. Considering how WWE refused to mention the
initials TNA even long after it had ceased to be even a tiny threat, it’s odd how they
brought up AEW just two nights after the new promotion’s very well received debut show.
It wasn’t even a negative slight, and will probably just act as free advertising.
There was little time to react to the AEW name drop, as Seth Rollins came out, trashed
the Electric Chair and started a match with Zayn. They had a very good bout, as you would
expect from these two, built around Rollins selling his knee yet again. I just wish Sami
was a credible threat, as he’s been beaten in pretty much every match since his return.
Seth won in the end, but despite selling his knee, there was no lurking Brock Lesnar to
be seen. Ha, ha, screw you for staying around until the end.
This was a pretty bad episode of Raw, with a particularly lame and lacklustre opening
hour. And while Rollins vs Zayn and Cesaro vs Ricochet were enjoyable, the in-ring segments
were massively overkilled in this show - a baffling decision after Double or Nothing’s
excellent in-ring wrestling on Saturday. This week’s Raw is Poor.
And now over to Luke with the news, and how WWE have now cut that AEW reference!
As announced on Raw, AJ Styles was set to compete in a fatal four-way match for the
#1 contendership to Seth Rollins’ Universal Championship which was won by Baron Corbin.
It’s all your fault, Baron Corbin. Dave Meltzer had originally reported that
Styles was set to take some time off after WrestleMania, a report which Styles himself
denied. And now Mike Johnson has confirmed with his WWE sources that Styles is indeed
injured, but doesn’t know the nature of the injury. Instead Johnson is reporting that
Styles is simply “banged up” with no timeframe on when he’ll return to the ring.
The only other notable thing from Raw came during Corey Graves’ newest talk show segment
The Electric Chair, during which Zayn namedropped WWE’s latest competition All Elite Wrestling.
It’s been reported that the fans were real, but the questions were screened ahead of time.
Dave Meltzer has since claimed on Wrestling Observer Radio that the line was scripted
and signed off by Vince McMahon, but one writer called it “so ruddy stupid”, and said
it was done to show that WWE can say the name and they’re not afraid to say the letters.
On the same show conversely, Bryan Alverez is reporting that it was not scripted, but
speculates that WWE are telling reporters that it wasn’t scripted as a way to work
wrestling reporters as well as the wrestlers in the lockerroom.
What we do know is that WWE have edited the line off the YouTube version of the segment
[5], instead jumping straight to Zayn saying he can win the Universal Championship whenever
he wants. And AEW Executive Vice Presidents Matt and
Nick Jackson of The Young Bucks have now responded on Twitter, with Matt sharing a video of The
Bucks doing an El Generico move at Double Or Nothing - even though Sami Zayn and El
Generico are totally different people of course - and Nick posted a screengrab of a Being
The Elite episode from a couple of years ago which featured cameos from Zayn and Kevin
Owens. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens to AEW confirmed!
Someone else who might be AEW confirmed are Mike and Maria Kannellis. Back in January
it was reported by both Pro Wrestling Sheet and Fightful that The Kannellisi had requested
their releases from the company, rumoured which were denied by Maria Kannellis. However
she’s now added more fuel to this rumour fire by recently posting on Twitter: “Contracts
are up in 3 weeks. Just saying…” While she did say make a joke about when responding
to a fan, Mike Johnson of PWInsider is reporting that The Kannellisi’s contracts do expire
in June 2019, which would be two years after their debut at Money in the Bank 2017.
The greatest love I’ve ever known to AEW confirmed!
But someone who won’t likely be joining All Elite Wrestling however is Joey Ryan.
Despite being a regular character on Being The Elite, Ryan hasn’t signed with AEW and
did not appear at Double or Nothing on Saturday. It had been reported a couple of weeks ago
that WWE approached Ryan about signing for NXT, where he would wrestle for a couple of
years before transitioning into a trainer’s role. Ryan reportedly turned that offer down
as he would have to take a massive paycut from what he makes on the independent circuit
to join NXT, and now SoCal Uncensored - which is also a wrestling website and not just an
AEW stable - are reporting that Ryan will announce this Thursday at Bar Wrestling’s
Pickle Jar Hero show that he’s also turned down an offer from All Elite Wrestling.
SoCalUncensored reached out to Ryan for comment who told them, “everything will be answered
Thursday.” Thank you for watching and a special thank
you to our Patreon Pledge Hammers, some of which you can see scrolling their way into
my stomach. What’s the latest on the DLC for Red Dead Redemption 2? And what are the
AEW plans for Jon Moxley? Click the videos over there to find out more. I’ve been Luke
Owen and that was wrestling.