On today’s news, a former WWE wrestler has teased an in-ring return, last-minute changes
to Raw, future plans for Brock Lesnar & Roman Reigns plus Oli’s review of Raw.
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Cast your mind back to the Performance Center era of WWE programming in early to mid 2020,
I know, it’s awful, and you might remember a pretty heated rivalry between Bayley & Sasha
Banks and The Kabuki Warriors, that ended with Kairi Sane being written off TV entirely.
Reports from the time indicated that Kairi had become a Japanese ambassador for WWE,
and not much has been heard of her in terms of wrestling since. However that might be
about to change, as Kairi Sane in-ring return confirmed?
Notice I didn’t say WWE return there, because as it turns out, she might have left the company.
Kairi has recently removed the ‘WWE’ portion of her Instagram handle, and has updated her
bios on Twitter and Instagram to say ‘Former WWE Superstar’. Note that while her Twitter
handle still currently is @KairiSaneWWE, changing Twitter handles can result in the removal
of verification and the like, so it usually requires a bit more care and communication
with the platform. Not only this, but Kairi has also hinted at
a potential return to the ring, responding to a fan on Twitter who said they hoped to
see Kairi in a ring again someday, with a simple winking emoji.
Ooh, you tease. The former NXT Women’s Champion is sure
to be a hit whatever she chooses to do, so best of luck to her.
Last-Minute Changes To Raw It’s been a little while since we’ve reported
about last-minute changes and torn up scripts and the like for WWE isn’t it? Do you think
that’s because they stopped, or because that just became the norm and wasn’t news
anymore? I think it’s the latter. But it’s that time once more, as according
to Fightful, on last night’s episode of Raw, the opening match of Kevin Owens vs Big
E in a Steel Cage was originally going to main event the show. This was reportedly the
case until around four hours before the show began, when it was moved to the start of the
show in place of the Raw Women’s Championship match between Becky Lynch and Liv Morgan.
According to the report, the original opening segment was a Seth Rollins in-ring promo,
so just think about the potential laughs we missed out on.
Future Brock Lesnar & Roman Reigns Plans And speaking of other competitors in the WrestleMania
31 main event, what a segue Pete, Brock Lesnar & Roman Reigns are still feuding. Yep, that’s
still happening. After their match at Crown Jewel, they have another one coming up at
Day 1. Now some might have thought that this would be the culmination of the feud, with
the following PPV being the Royal Rumble, where Reigns could get a new challenger to
his Universal Title and could organically move on from Lesnar.
Oh you poor, naive individuals. According to the Wrestling Observer, the plans for Lesnar
& Reigns are for them to have a series of matches, with the Day 1 bout being yet another
in this series. So Lesnar vs Reigns at WrestleMania right? Gotta keep the trend going. If that
does happen, it’ll be the third WrestleMania headlined by Lesnar & Reigns. Austin vs Rock,
this is not. And now it’s time for Oli’s review of
Raw, in about 5 minutes. Look, a steel cage. We have no idea what we’re
doing! The show opened with Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens
and Big E getting direct to camera backstage promos - their feud might have the best concentration
of talkers in WWE right now - because to kick things off, it’s a random, unannounced KO
vs Big E cage match! The cage kind of makes sense with the three
men interfering in each other’s matches for over a month. But it also undermined the
stipulation - which would’ve felt more impactful set up in the episode, and paid off as a main
event. Try saying ‘undermined the cage stipulation’
to KO, though, who fought as always like a man wrestling his last match. Because I guess
maybe he is. Big E won after almost 20 minutes with a 2nd rope Big Ending, escaping through
the door. While the cage was hotshotted, this was another
great in-ring match between them, and a decent chapter in one of the most coherent stories
in the company right now. So quick, add a Bobby Lashley!
Raw comes back from a break, and all three men are laying dead around the ring, because
Bobbles had randomly run down and laid everyone out. Him and MVP later explained it’s because
they feel disrespected not being included. So expect that neat little Triple Threat at
Day 1 to become a Fatal Fourway. Zelina Vega then beat Getting Further Away
From a Superhero Nikki Almost a Superhero in about 2 minutes. Nikki’s spirits were
briefly lifted by a fan asking for her autograph backstage afterwards, but psyche, it was actually
for Jerry Lawler who was standing right behind her.
Was that in Jerry’s contract? If I return for a cheap hometown pop, it has to involve
a young woman asking for my autograph backstage. I’m still relevant, groupies are still relevant
- Memphis forever. But where’d you get that jacket, bud?
Just when you think Randy Orton and Riddle’s act might start getting stale with tag team
matches that go nowhere, they geniously announced the RKBro-noment - Riddle’s idea, for which
they’d be special correspondents, where he even got Randy to put on a blazer!
The first round match was AJ Styles and Omos vs the Street Profits. AJ seemingly had it
won, but an angered Omos tagged himself in to beat up the Profits, and got them both
counted out. Omos then stormed off afterwards, furthering their break up angle from last
week. Riddle then did some great work building up
Randy’s post-match analysis, which was just him saying: ”nope”.
Later on, the Mysterios beat Alpha Academy, when Dominic was beaten up for ages, then
got a lucky pin on Chad Gable. Get out of there, Chad, while you still have your youth.
With no Randy there, Otis scoop slammed Riddle afterwards in frustration. Riddle even manages
to get laid out in his own tournament in a match he’s not even wrestling in.
Rather than the Priest becoming Damien story from the last month, he just had a really
decent match against Bobby Roode. In an alternate reality, this could’ve been for the NXT
Championship. Priest won, but Dolph Ziggler beat him up
afterwards. I’m into a Dolph vs Priest feud. Doudrop got the most time yet to show how
good she is on the main roster, going over 5 minutes with Bianca Belair in a back-and-forth
match. They worked it effectively, with the crowd getting to their feet for a near KOD
spot, but WWE blue-balled them all with Doudrop escaping and taking the lame count out loss.
At least that KOD tease worked incredibly. It’ll be awesome when it’s eventually
hit. Miz hosted Edge on MizTV, where he called
him out first for going soft, for saying nice things about him last week, but then also
wanted to know where that compassion was in 2006, when Miz was being hazed in the locker
room. It was a nice use of shoot material, but unfortunately,
all the realism of Ken Loach’s entire filmography probably wouldn’t make me excited for their
match, which they booked for themselves at Day 1.
Veer Mahaan is still coming everyone! But before then, we have the latest episode
of everyone’s favourite odd couple sitcom, the very, very, very, very old guy Vince McMahon,
and his selfie-loving nephew Austin Theory. Leaning into his role, Vince has now adopted
the cadence and mannerisms of Groucho Marx, complete with slow comedic eye rolls and finger
tapping. This week, Vince said Austin would have a
match, which was a surprise, but because Austin expected the surprise, the match was pulled,
because it was no longer a surprise. What is the lesson I’m supposed to learn here?!
So because there was no longer a match, Vince said Austin would have to find another way
to impress him. Which is the dialogue of a gay porno. And Austin responded, by unzipping
his top and started doing sexy jumping jacks. Which is the visuals of a gay porno.
Vince shouted for Austin to use his brains, by which he presumably meant ‘his ass’,
because Vince lingered on watching that after Theory walked out the door.
Austin’s big idea was to jump Finn Balor after his victory over T-Bar. In another timelines,
that would’ve been a great NXT Championship match.
Dana Brooke was approached by the usual 24/7 title jabronis, where I’m pretty sure Reggie
tried to hit on her. Smash those glass ceilings, Dana. Now women can be turned into comedy
jobbers my the 24/7 title too! Equality. Thankfully, the main event properly addressed
that balance, with an incredibly well presented Women’s Title match between Becky Lynch
and Liv Morgan. The in-ring action was ok, but the framing of the fight - it being 17
years since Trish Stratus vs Lita main evented Raw, Liv getting a really good video package
before her entrance, recapping her childhood, having an interview with her mum, the commentators
calling the action with gravitas, and a surprisingly invested crowd - elevated this match significantly.
But Becky cheated to win yet again, holding the rope to retain - giving us the latest
version of Miz Girl, where her dad appears to be laughing at her being upset.
It is a bit tiring seeing Becky win like this again, but I think this serves the overall
story. Morgan has now proved herself to Lynch, and can go into a Day One match with self-belief.
What did you think of Raw? Let me know in the comments. 80% of you voted for IT SHOUD’VE
BEEN LIV in our poll on a pole match on the community tab.
The opening cage match, the RKBro-noment and the presentation of the main event were all
really well done. And everything else in between was decent too. This week’s Raw is 4 out
of 5, actually making it by default one of the best episodes of the year!
Now find out what happened to Jeff Hardy over the weekend
in Laurie’s News.