Here are the Raw after Money In The Bank, the fall out from the event with a brand new WWE World Heavyweight Champion! How did this Raw stack up? Let’s get to it …
Dean Ambrose Opens The Show
Dean Ambrose forgets his title in the taxi, that is a laugh! He opens up the show and the crowd is into it, and it’s nice to see him on top. Years of hard work paying off and hopefully he will start to feel fresh again. At Money In The Bank I felt he was, and the Jericho feud lasted way too long and the feud with Brock Lesner had a weak pay off. To probably no surprise to anyone Ambrose calls himself ‘The Dude’, which gets chanted. The natural progression from ‘The Man’ and ‘The Guy’, and this leads Roman Reigns to come out to loud boos. He tries to play it cool with Ambrose, but Ambrose lets him know he would have cashed in on him as well. Seth Rollins comes out and he gets huge cheers and of course he has a few complains to make. Ambrose just didn’t care, both wanted title shots naturally. Shane McMahon comes out and decides to make the Number 1 contendership for tonight with Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins. Didn’t we have that match yesterday?
Rating: 4/5
Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens
This was a short than usual match from these two but that doesn’t mean it had a drop in quality, not by a long shot. They gave us a great match despite being banged up from the MITB ladder match, Sami Zayn was on fire and was not going to take any shit from Kevin Owens and I liked that attitude. They brawled outside the ring a lot, with Owens not wanting to take any of it. Zayn gets the upset win and Owens is not happy. He gets pissed off and attacks Zayn on the ramp, they brawl and it gets broken up. They are shown brawling backstage, this feud is still going strong.
Rating: 4/5
People Power himself John Laurinitis comes out to campaign for a GM position but Shane McMahon comes out and tells him it is not happening. Shane says he intends to run both shows. Enzo and Cass come out for their match and there is a shoe and dance off between Enzo and Shane, I laughed.
Enzo & Cass vs. The Vaudevillians
Enzo and Cass did their usual banter and Enzo went on about … something. I honestly don’t remember, I was too busy just enjoying them. Another match against The Vaudevillians, and no complaints from me. I enjoy both teams in the ring a lot, and it was pretty entertaining. This one did have a finish, and it was a lot of fun. Just a nice fun tag team match, and I hope these guys are not broken up in under a month with the draft. Enzo & Cass are surely future Tag Team Champions?
Rating: 3.5/5
AJ Styles Addresses His Match With John Cena
As we all saw at MITB, AJ Styles did not win against John Cena cleanly, The Club came out and helped him. AJ comes out and acts like he is pissed off at what they did and he didn’t want them to get involved. They come out and of course he is just playing, he asks them to apologise and they do. He then says they need to apologise to John Cena, which prompts AJ to ask him to come out. AJ and Cena exchange words and as expected this feud is far from over. AJ says to Cena he can face any of them 1 on 1 with no help, but not him. So it’s Karl Anderson vs. John Cena.
Rating: 3.5/5
Karl Anderson vs. John Cena
Another match people thought would never happen but here we are, and unfortunately it is back to Super Cena urgh. I did not want to see this happen so quickly, it is disappointing. This for the most part was a squash match, and I have no idea why The Club as a tag team duo have been booked to look weak at times. They should be monsters, and this is not how you do it. I understand it is John Cena but Anderson should have gotten some offense and this should have been a longer match. It ended in DQ as Cena was about to make the pin Gallows and AJ come out. They beat down Cena, AJ has a date with Stone Cold on the podcast, only on the WWE Network. (It was fantastic BTW, highly recommended)
Rating: 2/5
Backstage with Rollins, who promises to win. Zack Ryder is backstage getting ready for a match. Becky Lynch is backstage for an interview and she does not understand the women at all. Natalya attacks her and says she is looking out for herself, I am interested to see where this leads.
Zack Ryder vs. Baron Corbin
Uneventful match, I did not expect to see Corbin on Raw after that miserable match at MITB. This was the usual, nothing special and Ryder didn’t get much offense in. Squash match and they have made me not care at all about Corbin.
Rating: 1/5
Wyatt Family have some promos air, they are back!
Backstage again, Paige is getting interviewed but Charlotte and Dana Brooke interrupt. I can’t remember who said it but Charlotte or Dana said “She can’t flex with us” that was funny.
WWE Women’s Championship Match: Charlotte (c) w/Dana Brooke vs. Paige
After two clean singles non title victories over Charlotte, Paige finally gets her title match. This was an actual long match, and it was fairly decent as well. Paige had the upper hand a lot and despite a few sloppy spots (could hear her call a spot or two as well), it was pretty well booked. It feels like Charlotte is losing her edge and without someone in her corner she can’t win, and I think this works pretty well because her reign is going to be up soon. This was the longest women’s match we have had in weeks and I appreciated that, both worked hard as well. The end came when Dana completely messed up a simple task, she was meant to put Charlottes foot on the rope but didn’t get there. Her foot was under the rope, and it was clear she put it there but the ref continued the match and attempted to eject Dana. Charlotte had the distraction and hit natural selection for the win, a shame such a fine match was tainted by that mistake.
Post match – THE BOSS IS BACK! Finally Sasha is back in the picture, she attacks Charlotte and holds the title high. I am sure we will see a Tag Match with Sasha and Paige against the two. This is exciting!
Rating: 3.5/5
The Wyatt Family Returns
The crowd erupts for their return, still no Luke Harper unfortunately. Bray is looking in the best shape he has been in for quite some time and good for him. It’s great having them back and it seems like they are heels or at least tweeners, Bray didn’t get to talk much as .. The New Day interrupts. Yes The New Day! The New Day kind of mock the Wyatt’s and Xavier almost looks entranced by Bray, which was pretty funny. Without needing to say much else Bray just proclaims that “New Day Falls”. A short segment but I am liking this, something different and maybe a feud that The Wyatts wont lose?
Rating: 3.5/5
Titus O’Neil vs. Rusev
Lana introduces her man, and Rusev comes out. Backstage Titus has some choice words for Rusev (why are we backstage so constantly?), and he comes out. The match never gets underway as Titus pretty much demolishes Rusev and they fight outside the ring and it was good. I liked this much better than their match and it keeps the feud fresh. Perhaps Titus will get the gold? Whatever the case, things have gotten more interesting.
Rating: 3/5
Backstage again, Chris Jericho confronts Shane McMahon and he complains about his leadership. I kind of hope this leads to a match between them, I think that could be interesting honestly. I liked this a lot, it was short but to the point.
The Miz segment, so we don’t forget him I guess? Sorry but aren’t Champions required to defend their titles often, isn’t that why when injured you have to give up the title? *sigh*
Number 1 Contender’s Match: Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns
The pair delivered another great match, not a carbon copy of their PPV bout either. It was high on action and lots of back and forth between the two, it was heated. The crowd were definitely behind Rollins and against Reigns, change him up already Vince! Ambrose was on commentary and it was fine he’s entertaining and I liked that he didn’t have a preference with either guy. Reigns and Rollins were brawling a lot and the fight was outside of the ring a lot. This lead to a double count out, so no winner. Shane McMahon comes out and says we need a winner, but Ambrose says he’ll fight them both. So Shane makes the Triple Threat Match between the former Shield members for Battleground. I thought this may be the Summerslam main event but in saying that the draft would have happened well before Summerslam. Ambrose then plants both guys with Dirty Deeds and stands tall. I am going to love the hell out of this feud!
Rating: 4/5
Overall the show was decent, I have no idea why we had so many backstage segments and interviews just before the matches were set to happen. Lots of hype for Smackdown going live and the announcement that the draft will happen on the first live episode. Things are going to get shaken up big time.
The Super Network 