It’s the first Raw under Heyman’s control! Bray Wyatt re-debuts! We’ve got number one
contender’s for the Universal and Raw Women’s Championships! And [news story]
Click the timestamps in the video description below to be taken to any of those stories,
right now! I am Chopper Pete Quinnell, still filling in for Oli, don’t worry he’s back
from holiday soon, have yourself a superclick party [kick] by pressing the thumbs up, subscribe
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of the day, which today is:
Who would you have made the number one contender against Brock Lesnar?
And make sure to press the i above my head to let me know what you thought of the show,
where you can choose from Rawsome, Cor, Avrawge, Poor and Rawful. This is the July 15th, 2019
episode of Monday Night Raw.
The show kicked off with new Universal Champion Brock Lesnar and his advocate Paul Heyman
cutting a promo, where Paul announced that since he’s the guy in charge now, I thought
there were no authority figures?, he’s going to make a 10-man battle royal for the main
event, with the winner facing Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship. Those 10 men
were: Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Big E, Cesaro, Braun Strowman, Rey Mysterio, Baron Corbin,
Sami Zayn, Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns. There’s a lot of matches I want to see in
there.
The first match of the night was a six-man tag 2-out-of-3 falls match with Ricochet teaming
with The Usos to take on The Revival and Robert Roode, time for a moustache break! Wait...he’s...got
a full beard now...no...more...moustache break…
The first fall comes immediately with superkicks, a codebreaker, now named The Recoil, and a
standing shooting star press, with the second fall coming from a flapjack. Is that right?
Was this supposed to be a Shatter Machine and Wilder just didn’t get the memo? Ricochet
hit a 630 on Roode for the third fall, which brought out The Club. Everyone got into a
big shmozz, with The Club standing tall over Ricochet.
Viking Raiders squashed some local talent, before we get a backstage promo with Drew
McIntyre who’s...not with Shane? Could it be? This mystical timeline? Is it possible
to have a show without Shane McMahon? The promised times are upon us! There is a God!
Anyway, Drew goes into the locker room and confronts Cedric Alexander about his hoodwink
that didn’t work, which was followed by a match between the two, which Alexander actually
won via roll-up in 3 minutes.
Next we get one of my favourite rivalries in NXT history, Samoa Joe vs Finn Balor. Can’t
wait for this one aaaaaand Joe wins VIA ROLL-UP in a minute. Finn then immediately beats up
Joe afterwards and stands tall and starts celebrating! YOU LOST FINN! YOU LOST YOUR
CHAMPIONSHIP AND THEN YOU LOST YOUR COMEBACK MATCH ON RAW. IS THIS A NEW THING IN WWE?
TO CELEBRATE WHEN YOU LOSE? IT STARTED WITH CEDRIC, AND NOW FINN’S DOING IT? But then,
all was saved.
Finn’s music slowly faded out, like the power had been cut. The lights cut out, and
suddenly in the darkness, was a re-debuting Bray Wyatt, in The Fiend mask, looking absolutely
terrifying. He hits a Sister Abigail on Finn, and it cuts to black again, with Bray’s
laugh leading us into an ad break. He looked incredible. This was done to perfection, and
let’s never talk about that Bray vs Finn feud that happened before. Could The Fiend
be about to beat The Demon at SummerSlam?
We had Zack Ryder in the ring next, where he was about to face Mike Kanellis, but Maria
tells Mike she’s going to fight in his place, which she can’t do obviously, because she’s
pregnant. Mike then says don’t worry, I’ve got this, and immediately loses to Ryder.
Maria then says that her unborn child had more chance of winning that show than Mike
did. I really, really, really, hate this story.
The Club were back again, this time in a 6-man tag match against the Lucha House Party. LHP
got in a lot more offense than you would expect, but The Club stood tall after Styles tapped
out Kalisto with a brutal-looking Calf Crusher.
Rollins cuts an impassioned backstage promo saying he’ll fight anyone to get back to
the Universal Championship.
Next we had a women’s Fatal 4-Way Elimination match to determine the number one contender
to Becky Lynch’s Raw Women’s Championship, with The Man watching at ringside. The four
competitors were Natalya, Carmella, Alexa Bliss and Naomi, and considering the amount
of quick matches so far tonight, no doubt this will be a quick one too. What’s that?
25 MINUTES? Jesus.
Carmella was eliminated pretty early by, you guessed it, a roll-up, from Alexa Bliss. Bliss
had a good role in this match, being the heel on the outside that capitalized where she
could. I wish I could tell you more things that happened in this match, but it just seemed
to drag on for far too long. Naomi was eventually eliminated by Natalya, WITH ANOTHER ROLL-UP,
and then Nikki Cross got on the microphone to tell the crowd to cheer for Alexa and begins
chanting her name. I guess she’s just trying to use her Bardic Inspiration. That’s a
D&D joke for you right there.
It doesn’t work though, as Natalya taps out Bliss after taking out Cross on the outside.
Lynch and Natalya cut a promo together after the match which has some decent fire, albeit
with some very strange lines thrown in, and it should be at least a mildly interesting
match given that SummerSlam is in Toronto. I’d be a hypocrite to say this was bad,
given that we have a new challenger for Becky and it’s not Lacey Evans, but...I’m not
very excited for a Natalya title match.
Miz comes out for MizTV with Dolph Ziggler next (ugh), and Ziggler questions when Miz
just became a company yes-man, just like his wife, so Miz snaps and beats up Ziggler. I
do not want to see a Ziggler/Miz feud. Please.
Drake Maverick attempted to consummate his marriage next, where Truth had earlier tried
to find him in his hotel. They get room service, and of course, Truth is on the room service
trolley, and the room service attendant is a referee. Truth eventually pins Maverick
and runs off with the championship. This fell a little bit flat.
What didn’t fall flat was Corey’s joke straight after that segment when he says he
would have utilized the small package, which absolutely broke Renee and Cole next to them.
WA HEY. PENIS JOKES. AMIRIGHT LADS?
Finally was the main event battle royal, here we go. Cesaro was eliminated first, yeah that’s
fine still plenty of other people I want to see face Lesnar, oh Bobby Lashley’s gone,
that’s cool, Big E’s gone? Hmm, it’s getting a bit thin in there now, Sami Zayn’s
gone. Unfortunate, Mysterio’s gone, ah that would have been nice, oh well, Reigns and
Strowman get eliminated? Oh that means...wait no there’s still Orton! That could be fun!
And look, here he comes after being hidden on the outside, aaaaand Rollins wins anyway.
Rollins cuts a promo after the match saying that SummerSlam will be just like WrestleMania
when he wins back the Universal Championship. I know a lot of people will hate on this decision,
but honestly, I don’t mind it. As long as Rollins wins. He wasn’t handed a rematch,
he had to work for it, and after he wins it back, then we can start doing some great feuds
with him and not just Baron Corbin.
This was a decent episode of Raw. Some talent got on the show who aren’t normally featured,
which is great, and a complaint we’ve had for a long time. The promo work I think improved
pretty much across the board, Bray Wyatt re-debuted and they seem to be pushing Cedric Alexander
somewhat. However, the women’s match dragged on for far too long, I’m not very excited
by Natalya vs Lynch, the Balor/Joe match was severely disappointing and Rollins absolutely
has to beat Lesnar at SummerSlam, otherwise this entire story will be ruined and worthless.
BUT THERE WAS NO SHANE MCMAHON. NOT ONE SECOND. For that, this show gets bumped up to an Avrawge.
And now over to Luke with the news!
Great review, Pete. I look forward to talking with you in great detail on the Raw WrestleRamble…
what’s going on? Why did the lights go out? It’s Steve from Going in Raw! What a moment!
What are you doing here? I’m here to do the Raw WrestleRamble review with you! Well,
I’d recommend everyone check that out after watching this video! But, I’ve got to do
the news first if you don’t mind. Despite being advertised for the overly wordy
“Cross Branded All Star Top Ten Battle Royal”, Daniel Bryan was pulled from the match and
replaced with Sami Zayn. While no official reason has been given for this change, Figure
Four Online are reporting that WWE “decided to go in a different direction” with Bryan.
Which certainly will raise some eyebrows for an announced segment on tonight’s Smackdown.
Not only will Shane McMahon be holding a Town Hall meeting, but WWE are promoting that Bryan
will make a “career altering announcement” on Smackdown Live stemming from his tag team
loss at Extreme Rules. Also announced for tonight’s Smackdown is
a Womens Tag Team Championship match between Kabuki Warriors and IIconics, and Ember Moon
tagging with a mystery partner to take on Fire & Desire.
And hopefully they get a better reaction than the fatal four-way on Raw to crown a new number
one contender to Becky Lynch, which was won by Natalya. However, the match was not receieved
well by the fans in Long Island, with chants of “boring” and “this is awful”, as
well as chants for Sasha Banks and John Cena, and booing that the match wouldn’t end.
Two of the wrestlers in that match have since responded to the negative reactions, with
Naomi simply posting a woozy face emoji, with Alexa Bliss taking a more direct route - tweeting
out: “just disrespectful”. Someone who might get a better reaction, however,
is Luke Harper. The former Wyatt Family member and Bludgeon Brother hasn’t been on WWE
TV since this time last year, going down with an injury shortly after Summerslam. He was
part of the Worlds Collide tournament on the WWE Network and had a brief appearance in
the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania, but he announced via Twitter
that he was unhappy with his creative direction and had asked for his release from WWE. It
was then reported that not only had his request been turned down, he also was getting his
contract artificially extended due to being out with an injury last year to prevent him
from going to competition like All Elite Wrestling. It was expected that we wouldn’t see Harper
on WWE TV moving forward as Vince McMahon reportedly isn’t a fan, but PWInsider are
reporting that he’s “back on the road” with WWE this week. Whether this means Harper
will be back on TV for Smackdown tonight or this is just for house shows remains to be
seen. Harper’s former leader Bray Wyatt made his
return to TV last night - attacking Finn Balor after his loss to Samoa Joe to seemingly set
up a feud. I’m getting horrible Sister Abigail flashacks. However according to Pro Wrestling
Sheet it likely won’t be a long-lasting feud, as the former Intercontinental Champion
might not be around after Summerslam. According to Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet,
Balor has requested two months off from WWE following their next PPV. Satin notes that
he hasn’t been told an exact reason why Balor wants time off, but says one source
told him it was so Balor could “recharge”. Remember to check out me and Luke reviewing
this week’s Raw on the WrestleRamble by clicking the video on screen right now! And
subscribe to ScreenStalker where I’ll be playing some games with them on Friday’s
episode! I’ve been Steve, and that was wrestling.