Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch and Charlotte are officially main eventing WrestleMania! Triple
H puts his career on the line! And is this finally the end of Dean Ambrose in WWE?
Also, there’s been a big backstage update on the future of Becky Lynch! It’s not a
suspension for once. Click the timestamps in the video description
below to go straight to any of those stories. Also check out our brand new video game and
movie news channel ScreenStalker at the end of this video, where SoCalVal will be revealing
a huge death that was scrapped from Zack Snyder’s Justice League!
I’m Oli Davis - give us a subscribe, press the thumbs up button, and answer our question
of the day in the comments: What do you think about the women’s triple threat main eventing
WrestleMania? 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 25th March, 2019 edition
of Monday Night Raw.
Michael Cole opened the show by revealing WrestleMania 35 will be main evented - for
the first time ever - by lady people. Ronda Rousey vs Becky Lynch vs Charlotte will close
the biggest show of the year, in the crowning achievement for WWE’s Women’s Evolution
about a decade behind everyone else. And because WWE have announced it, there’s no possible
way they’ll change their minds several times before then, and then again on the day itself.
You were meant to start the show, Kofi Kingston gauntlet.
So to carry on the WrestleMania main event storyline momentum just two episodes out we
got...
… a Beat the Clock challenge that Ronda openly called stupid.
After Rousey, Becky and Charlotte each tried to take credit for getting the Mania main
event, Ronda set the pace by beating Sarah Logan in 1 minute 25 seconds.
Charlotte couldn’t make Ruby Riott tap in time.
And despite being taken out by Charlotte at the start, getting suspended, injured, reinstated,
arrested, suspended again and then medically cleared - it was a hell of an 80 seconds - Becky
managed to roll up Liv Morgan beating Ronda’s time.
A fine little story of one-up-womanship between the three opponents, and it was nice to see
how Ronda’s competitiveness made her hang around despite trashing the clock gimmick
at the start, but this was the penultimate Raw episode before WrestleMania, and this
did not feel bigtime. And dash any hopes for a hotter go-home segment
next week, as it was announced that Ronda, Charlotte and Becky would all be teaming up…
to take on the Riott Squad - a team they all just beat in a laughably quick amount of time.
Finn Balor was booked to take on Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush in another handicap match next.
But because Rush wasn’t medically cleared, those dastardly heels had a far more devious
partner in mind… Jinder Mahal. It went about as well as you would expect,
with Finn pinning Mahal after a Coup De Grace. At least it was over quickly.
We then got the first of three Elias Does New York segments, hyping his WrestleMania
35 musical appearance. They were actually pretty funny, with his guitar case and busking
money being stolen behind him at one point. Elias is a great character for these sorts
of pre-taped skits, and I wish they’d do more stuff like this with him.
Well known established tag team Aleister Black and Ricochet beat The Revival in a non-title
match next. No matter how fast or impressively Black and Ricochet move, they’re on the
Raw tag division treadmill - which means, ultimately, they’re going nowhere.
Drew McIntyre is an odd one. I always love his matches, his look, the way he wrestles
and his promo delivery, but he struggles to actually maintain any heat from week-to-week.
And given the last few weeks of beating up Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, the crowd should’ve
been a lot hotter for him from the start. Reigns accepted Drew’s WrestleMania challenge,
and then beat him up for insulting his family - until McIntyre hit him in the Smaller Dog
with a low blow, and laid him out with a Claymore. A wild Ambrose then appeared backstage - I
thought you were gone - to set up the night’s Last Man Standing main event with McIntyre.
By this point in the show, babyfaces had won every match so far. So when massively over
hometown girl Sasha Banks took on Natalya in a pretty decent match, Nia Jax and Tamania
caused a double DQ. Banks was an afterthought, but Beth Phoenix
looked great laying out Tamina with a Glam Slam. Sasha said backstage afterwards that
her and Bayley would take them all on - SmackDown’s IIconics included - at WrestleMania.
And then in a lovely moment, WWE played the video package for The Hart Foundation’s
Bret Hart and Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart going into this year’s Hall of Fame, cutting
back to Natalya in the ring crying for her recently-passed father.
For the first time in its terrible history so far, A Moment of Bliss was held in the
actual ring rather than on the stage. It didn’t help. Alexa was a babyface today, for those
keeping track, when she welcomed Braun Strowman to the ring to diffuse the situation with
Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Michael Che
The crowd sounded bored as Che and Jost entered each other in the WrestleMania Battle Royal,
which Alexa made official after joking she didn’t have the authority to make it happen.
Which was a funny line, and you gotta laugh, because if you don’t - you’ll drive yourself
mad trying to figure out how authority figures work in WWE.
Speaking of authority figures - former acting Raw General Manager Baron Corbin - everything’s
your fault, Baron Corbin - came out next to beat Apollo Crews in a few minutes. It’s
too late for you, Crews… you’re now stuck… in Baron Corbin’s… midcard vortex!
Michael Cole said that after WrestleMania, Seth Rollins wants to be known as the Beastslayer.
Why wait? *cough* Ooooh Beastslayer. I wasn’t that into Seth’s ‘Brock doesn’t
inspire people’ and ‘WWE Universe’ content, but the ever-reliable Paul Heyman added a
much needed layer to the segment - falling over when backing away from Rollins, letting
Seth literally drop the mic on him after saying he’ll burn down Suplex City.
Because Brand Split LOL, the latest stop on Kurt Angle’s Better People You Could’ve
Faced At WrestleMania Retirement Tour was SmackDown’s US Champion Samoa Joe.
The two had an all-time great feud and series of matches in TNA, but watching Angle here
was kind of depressing, clunkily going through and delivering moves. He still managed to
pick up the win, though - guess how? Guess how they beat Joe? Yeah, the same way they’ve
booked him losing for the last several months - a surprise roll-up and then Joe’s angry
face.
Triple H based his Batista reply promo around a letter Dave’s legal team had sent, which
Hunter struggled to get out of his jacket because it’s just so sexily tight. Triple
H joked the first few pages of the letter were lyrics to the Spice Girls’ 1996 smash-hit
Wannabe - GIMME WHAT I WANT! - but then went into serious mode - agreeing to put his career
on the line, because if he can’t beat Batista he doesn’t deserve to be in the ring anyway.
This was a fantastic promo.
But unfortunately the show was almost over when the main event began - cramming a Last
Man Standing stipulation into just 8 minutes. Ambrose and McIntyre ran through the big spots
as best they could, with Drew eventually winning with a Claymore. I actually quite enjoyed
the big move structure of the match, but the staircase Claymore two weeks ago was a far
more effective way to write Dean off TV, and ultimately the company - as going by reports,
he’s not booked on WrestleMania and this is the last time we’ll see him in WWE.
This was a pretty nothing episode where very little progressed in the way of story or drama,
which would be just about passable at another point in the year but this is the penultimate
show before WrestleMania. This isn’t what I want. It’s not what I want. So this week’s
Raw is Poor.
And now onto Luke with the news!
Thanks Oli - great review. And congrats on your five star classic against El Fakidor
yesterday! Your burns have healed rather well after being put through a flaming table, it
must be said.
WWE house shows are often very different to the TV product, with wrestlers given more
freedom to improvise and generally have a bit of fun. Never has that been more evident
than at a house show event over the weekend, where before their match Elias offered Finn
Balor the chance to sing a duet with him - covering the terrific Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley
Cooper from the Oscar winning A Star Is Born. Although hesitant at first, Finn just couldn’t
help himself, got his paws up, and sang the Lady Gaga part of the song.
Some of our older viewers might remember that Elias once had a surname, working in NXT as
Elias Samson. However he feel victim to Main Roster-itus - a terrible affliction where
as soon as you debut on the main roster you lose part of your identity. Rusev lost his
first name, Big E lost his surname, Andrade lost his surname and a nickname. The list
goes on and on, and it’s now found a new victim.
It was revealed yesterday that Mustafa Ali is the latest WWE wrestler to lose part of
their name, with WWE.com now just listing the Smackdown star as simply Ali - with the
former 205 Live star also changing his Twitter handle to @AliWWE.
Ali is not the first person to lose part of their name and he won’t be the last, so
I guess we should keep an eye out for The Charismatic Enigma, Jeff - the 17x WWE Champion,
John - and the current Intercontinental Champion, Bob.
While there has been no reports on why this name was changed, the newly shortened name
Ali took to Twitter to say he will fight for the people.
Someone who won’t be fighting for the people going forward however is Kurt Angle, who will
be having his farewell match in WWE at WrestleMania in just two weeks.
It was announced last week that the final match of Angle’s career will be against
Baron Corbin, a match that received a fair amount of backlash from fans. And according
to Justin LeBar, that was the idea. He reported that WWE wanted fans to be angry so they would
then be grateful when the company presented a bigger and better match. However it was
conversely reported by both PWInsider and the Wrestling Observer that Angle vs. Corbin
is the match that will take place unless they change their mind. Which could end up being
the case, with WrestleVotes reporting late last week that the match was being “reconsidered”
saying, “WWE did not expect this type of negative reaction, and thus, they don’t
want such a negative feel to Kurt’s final contest.”
But if the match is going to be changed, it will have to be on the go home show for WrestleMania,
as WWE were still pushing Angle vs. Corbin as the Mania match on last night’s Raw with
no hints of it being changed. And according to Rajah, as of this past weekend that was
still the plan. Interestingly though, they add that Kurt Angle and others backstage were
lobbying for the match to be changed, reporting that Angle in particular was pushing for a
WrestleMania match with John Cena instead. Rajah report though that it, “seems WWE
thinks the negative response is great for Corbin.”
It’s been heavily reported for a few months now that John Cena will have a match at WrestleMania,
but no decision has been made on who he will face.
Someone who’s WrestleMania picture is a lot clearer though is Becky Lynch, who will
compete in the main event of the show against Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey for the Raw
Women’s Championship. And according to Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet, we’re going
to see a lot of Becky moving forward.
Satin is reporting that Becky Lynch was recently offered a new mutli-year deal that includes
a raise - and, “she’s expected to put pen to paper soon.”
Thank you for watching and a big thank you to our awesome Pledge Hammers on Patreon,
some of which you can see below me scrolling their way into my stomach. Watch the epic
showdown between Oli and El Fakidor by clicking the video over there, and subscribe to ScreenStalker
and support the WrestleTalk YouTube family. I’ve been Luke Owen, and that was wrestling.