April 19, 2016
WWE/Twitter
AJ Styles confronts Roman Reigns moments after Styles’ old friends attacked Reigns in the ring.
London’s O2 Arena was the host for Raw on Monday night as WWE is currently touring in Europe. While they tour Europe around this time of year every year, Monday’s Raw had a bit of a different feel to it. Not only did we have a lot of new talent taking center stage, but the tag team tournament also took an interesting turn. It may have even been somewhat unexpected, but it was good. Really good.
As far as the matches, they were mostly good, although I could have done without another multi-woman tag team match. I like those two segments focused on the women’s division, and I think we missed that a lot this week. But the road to Payback was made a little clearer as more matches were confirmed for the pay-per-view two weeks away.
In what might be the most interesting but downplayed aspect of the show was the fact that Shane McMahon was in charge again. That makes three weeks in a row. I said last week on The Straight Shooters Podcast that I thought Shane would get at least a four-week run. Are we seeing the beginning of a brand split? Hmmm…
Here are some of the main stories coming out of Raw:
Roman Reigns is now a full-fledged tweener, because his on-screen character absolutely doesn’t care if the audience cheers him or boos him. He just wants everyone to realize that he’s “the guy.” And he doesn’t care much for AJ Styles, either.
Styles came out during Reigns’ promo, saying that he thinks Reigns is a hell of a champion as well as powerful, explosive and aggressive. Styles says he’ll need to have the match of his life to win the championship from Reigns, but that he always rises to the occasion and he’ll have another match of his life at Payback. Reigns said he would much rather be respected with the championship than liked without it. Styles said he wants to be liked and respected because it would make him a phenomenal WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Speaking of Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows met up with Styles backstage during an interview segment with the Phenomenal One and the voice of SmackDown, Mauro Ranallo. It was pretty surreal and the segment played off the history those three have shared together in New Japan Pro Wrestling. The Bullet Club has at least now been seen together on WWE television. They certainly may not call them The Bullet Club, but they made their presence felt at the end of the Reigns-Styles segment.
Anderson and Gallows attacked Reigns and laid him out as Styles walked away from the ring with his back turned. He then turned back around and realized what happened and seemed rather conflicted.
He approached Reigns backstage after the segment and told him he didn’t know that Anderson and Gallows were going to do that. Reigns didn’t believe him. Things are about to get very interesting in this storyline, and I’m excited about it.
Dean Ambrose opened the program with a special episode of the Ambrose Asylum, with his special guest who was in charge of Raw for the third week in a row, Shane McMahon. Kevin Owens interrupted McMahon, saying that he had a vendetta against him. Then, Sami Zayn came out to confront Owens, and then Jericho came out to confront Ambrose and McMahon. It was a mess and the fans weren’t into this at all. This all led to McMahon making two matches for the upcoming Payback pay-per-view: Owens vs. Zayn and Ambrose vs. Jericho. And on Raw, Owens would face Ambrose one-on-one and Jericho would face Zayn.
Jericho and Zayn’s match was right after the opening segment, and Jericho defeated Zayn with The Codebreaker. Later on in the show, Owens and Ambrose fought in the main event of the evening, with Ambrose coming out on top after hitting Owens with Dirty Deeds.
After the match, Jericho attacked Ambrose and hit him with the Codebreaker as Raw went off the air with Y2J standing tall.
MizTV this week featured the Intercontinental Champion and his wife, Maryse, making out yet again. Because that’s what happens every week now, I guess. Cesaro interrupted the makeout session, which eventually led to an eight-man tag team match with the League of Nations teaming up with The Miz to take on Cesaro and the WWE World Tag Team Champions, The New Day.
Cesaro got the pin on Sheamus courtesy of The Neutralizer. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Cesaro becomes the next WWE Intercontinental Champion at Payback. For all intents and purposes, he really should. The Miz with that championship is a waste. The Miz with any championship is a waste. His character is perfect the way it is. He doesn’t need a title.
Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady didn’t have to wait until a pay-per-view to get their big debut win because they defeated the Dudley Boyz on Monday night in a Tag Team Tournament Semifinal. I figured with the back-and-forth promos between the two teams, a pay-per-view match was in order. That wasn’t to be. The finals of the No. 1 contender’s tournament will take place at Payback.
Later on in the evening, The Vaudevillains quickly disposed of The Usos to take hold of the second spot in the finals of the tournament. It’s awesome to see two new tag teams come up and get put into a prominent position. One of these teams will hopefully beat The New Day so we can have some new blood infiltrated into the tag team division that actually matters. I’m looking forward to the finals in two weeks.
We had an eight-woman tag team match featuring Natalya and Charlotte on opposite sides, and Natalya was able to get the Women’s Champion to submit to the Sharpshooter. It makes for a good visual, but don’t expect Natalya to beat Charlotte at Payback for the Women’s Championship. That’ll probably be the last win she has for a while.
Baron Corbin has been a highly underrated part of Raw the last few weeks. Ever since winning the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania, Corbin has been booked perfectly and has a ready-made feud with Dolph Ziggler. As of this writing, a match between the two hasn’t been made official for Payback. I’d expect it to be made official soon, with Corbin going over, of course.
• Chris Jericho d. Sami Zayn by pinfall via the Codebreaker.
• Tag Team Tournament Semifinal: Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady d. Dudley Boyz by pinfall via the Rocket Launcher.
• Baron Corbin d. Fandango by pinfall via the End of Days. Dolph Ziggler, who was on commentary for the match, attacked Corbin after the match, but Corbin got the better of him.
• Cesaro/The New Day (c-Tag) d. The Miz (c-IC)/League of Nations by pinfall after Cesaro hit The Neutralizer on Sheamus.
• Natalya/Paige/Sasha Banks/Becky Lynch d. Charlotte (c-W)/Naomi/Tamina/Summer Rae by submission after Natalya makes Charlotte tap out to the Sharpshooter.
• Tag Team Tournament Semifinal: The Vaudevillains d. The Usos by pinfall via the Wherling Dervish.
• Apollo Crews d. Heath Slater by pinfall via the spinning sitdown powerbomb.
• Dean Ambrose d. Kevin Owens by pinfall via Dirty Deeds.
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