Sunday night’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view was still the talk of professional wrestling on Monday night as Raw invaded the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix.
A little over 24 hours after their latest pay-per-view set the wrestling world on fire, WWE made sure we came out of Raw knowing the main event for their next pay-per-view offering in July, Battleground.
There weren’t very many lulls on this edition of Raw, and the program flowed smoothly from segment to segment. It was easy to watch, which is the most one could ask for a three-hour weekly wrestling program.
Here are some of the main stories coming out of Raw:
What’s next for Ambrose?
The new WWE World Heavyweight Champion opened the show pretty much explaining everything we saw him do on Sunday night at Money in the Bank. But the one person who we forget about, who lost clean to Seth Rollins before Ambrose cashed in his briefcase, Roman Reigns came out and tried to play it cool by congratulating Ambrose on his win.
Reigns couldn’t shake the boos from the crowd and addressed them twice, something out of character for him, or something that’s been added to his character beginning Monday night. Reigns asked Ambrose how good it felt to cash in on Rollins but Ambrose said he would’ve cashed in on Reigns, too, if he was victorious.
As Reigns began to talk about his rematch clause, Rollins’ music hit and he stormed to the ring demanding a rematch for himself and how Ambrose cheated him out of the title, conveniently leaving out the fact that he cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania 31 during the Brock Lesnar-Reigns main event match, winning the championship in the process.
Heel work at its finest.
Shane McMahon came out and put together a No. 1 Contender’s match between Reigns and Rollins for the night’s main event. In a good, long television main event, we got a double countout as the champion was on commentary.
We should’ve seen this coming. Some didn’t think we’d see it this soon, and others did. Rollins and Reigns couldn’t get back in the ring during the referee’s ten-count, so there was no winner. But that didn’t bother the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Shane came out and Ambrose said he’d fight each of them on the same night. Shane said he’d do Ambrose one better and give him them on the same night at the same time and officially made a Triple Threat Match to headline Battleground.
Ambrose made sure to send a message to his good friend.
The war between Styles and Cena is far from over
Fresh off defeating John Cena Sunday night, AJ Styles came out for a promo and wanted his Club teammates to join him. He wanted an apology for them interfering in his match and they obliged… sarcastically. Styles then said they owed Cena an apology and called him out, but he wasn’t buying the bit. He wanted Styles but since Styles was a guest on the Stone Cold Podcast after Raw went off the air, he was unavailable to compete. 2016, folks.
Instead, Cena got his chance at Karl Anderson, but before the match could hit a groove, Styles and Gallows attacked Cena for the disqualification.
Something tells me this isn’t the end of this feud. Will Cena get two men to back him up in this fight? Stay tuned.
The Wyatt Family follows the buzzards
With zero fanfare, the Wyatt Family returned to WWE on Raw. Once they entered the ring, they were showered with, “Welcome back!” chants.
“Did you miss me?” Wyatt asked the crowd to a thunderous cheer. Wyatt said he and his family were locked away and punished, but now they are as strong as they’ve ever been. The WWE World Tag Team Champions then entered the arena and got into a promo war, so to speak, with Wyatt.
Xavier Woods faked being “brainwashed” by Wyatt as he started walking slowly towards the ring with a blank stare on his face before his good friends Big E and Kofi Kingston snapped him out of it. That was pretty great. And this feud will hopefully be good, because Enzo and Cass and Gallows and Anderson should be next in line to wear the tag team gold, not the Wyatts.
Owens and Zayn continue their rivalry
After seeing Owens and Zayn booked for Raw, I got my popcorn ready. It was a good match with a rather ending out of nowhere, with Zayn getting the victory. Owens attacked Zayn as he was heading backstage after the match, and the brawl was on. They cut to a commercial and came back with the two still brawling backstage.Hopefully, this isn’t the end, because these guys should wrestle at least ten more times.
The Boss is back
Rather interestingly, Paige got a shot at Charlotte’s WWE Women’s Championship on Monday night. Paige is a former two-time Divas Champion, so she’s no stranger to success. Until now. With help from Dana Brooke’s distraction, as usual, Charlotte got the win over Paige in an okay women’s match.
After the match, Sasha Banks came out and staked her claim to the Women’s Championship after taking out Brooke and Charlotte.
Match breakdown
• Sami Zayn d. Kevin Owens by pinfall via a rollup. Owens attacked Zayn after the match but the two continued to brawl until officials broke it up.
• Enzo Amore and Big Cass d. The Vaudevillains by pinfall after Enzo and Cass hit the Rocket Launcher, which Michael Cole said they now call it the BadaBoom Shakalaka, on Aiden English.
• John Cena d. Karl Anderson by disqualification after The Club attacked Cena during the match.
• Baron Corbin d. Zack Ryder by pinfall via End of Days.
• Women’s Championship: Charlotte (c) d. Paige by pinfall via Natural Selection.
• Non-Title: Rusev (c-US) vs. Titus O’Neil never began. Rusev and O’Neil brawled for a few minutes before the champion headed backstage.
• No. 1 Contender’s Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins ended in a double countout. Ambrose wanted both of them at Battleground, so Shane McMahon made a Triple Threat Match for the title.
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