Cody Rhodes Starts the Show, Bronson Reed VS Otis
Cody Rhodes started Monday Night Raw this week as he tried to talk about why he brought Jey Uso over to Raw. Cody gave a bunch of reasons and hints to him potentially being traded over to SmackDown before The Judgment Day arrived as they weren’t happy with Cody saving Jey Uso last week. Finn Balor, Senor Money in the Bank Damian Priest, and the NXT North American Champion Dominik Mysterio were all about to attack The American Nightmare before Jey Uso showed up as did Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in due course. As The Judgment Day backed off, JD McDonagh arrived with a couple of steel chairs before the Heels (besides Damian Priest) stormed the ring and a brawl started. Damian Priest was clearly not very happy about this, but he had to run into the ring anyway to save his buddies. Unfortunately for The Archer of Infamy, this backfired on him as he was sent flying out of the ring courtesy of a steel chair. This was a totally fine opening segment and I really liked that Priest wasn’t happy to go along with JD McDonagh’s plan.
Grade: C+
The first match of the night saw Bronson Reed take on Otis and I had a good time with this one. A “Tale of the Tape” showed up before the match started and it said that both guys weigh 330 pounds as well as other interesting stats before we got to see both men hit each other as hard as they possibly could. Both guys picked one another up at one point, but Bronson delivering a Samoan Drop to Otis was definitely more impressive. Whilst Otise was able to hit the Caterpillar late on, he missed when he attempted the Vader Bomb and this allowed Bronson Reed to hit the TSUMANI to get the victory. This was short, simple, and sweet!
Grade: B-
Ludwig Kaiser VS Tommaso Ciampa, Natalya VS Tegan Nox, Seth “Freakin” Rollins Calls Out Shinsuke Nakamura
Tegan Nox approached Becky Lynch backstage and The Man told Tegan that she wishes she’d have accepted her NXT Women’s Championship Open Challenge last week. Nox said she let Natalya have the opportunity because she’s a veteran before Becky told her that she needs to “step on some toes”. We then saw Tegan Nox go to see Adam Pearce saying that she wants to fight the winner of this weekend’s NXT Women’s Championship match next Monday. Natalya then walked in and said that she deserves a rematch (how) before Pearce decided that Nox and Natalya could go at it tonight with the winner earning a shot at the NXT Women’s Title for next week. We then saw an argument from earlier in the day between Imperium and Tommaso Ciampa before Gunther sent Ludwig Kaiser to deal with Ciampa in the second match of the night. This was a solid contest between two supremely talented and entertaining performers. Both guys easily could’ve come away with the victory here, but the difference maker was Giovanni Vinci as him being laid out in the ring distracted the referee which sort of cost Ludwig Kaiser the victory. Kaiser then kicked Vinci out of the ring in frustration before he turned around and got met by the knee of Tommaso Ciampa as The Blackheart secured the W. Gunther was watching this from a TV backstage and he was clearly angry about this so I’m now very excited to see Gunther-Ciampa as their match for the NXT UK Title back at Stand and Deliver 2021 was a lot of fun.
Grade: C+
We got a video package highlighting Dragon Lee which was very smart before Becky Lynch joined the commentary team as the NXT Women’s Champion was about to watch a match between Natalya and Tegan Nox. I really like Tegan Nox so it was nice to see her back on TV, and what was even nicer was the crowd started to get behind her. This match was quite short, but the fact that Natalya and Nox have teamed together in the past ended up helping them. In the end, Lady Kane delivered the Shiniest Wizard to The Queen of Harts to get the victory.
Grade: C+ (because it was nice to see Tegan get a victory)
Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio, and JD McDonagh were talking in “The Judgment Day Lounge” before Damian Priest stormed in and scared the life out of McDonagh. He then told JD to get out so The Irish Ace did just that. Priest then stormed off himself in the other direction as Balor and Mysterio watched on. Seth “Freakin” Rollins’ music then hit as the World Heavyweight Champion made his way down to the ring. The Visionary started off his promo by playing a game (which was basically done so the crowd could sing Rollins’ song) before Seth said he would give Shinsuke Nakamura one last opportunity to accept his challenge for a match for the World Heavyweight Championship as otherwise he’s moving on. Shinsuke then appeared on the screen and we got another one of his awesome Japanese video promos before The King of Strong Style promised to break Rollins so badly that his kid would be ashamed to even look at him. This Shinsuke character is an absolute joy, and after this comment, Nakamura announced that he wants Rollins at Fastlane in a Last Man Standing Match. Seth then accepted this challenge before he said he’s going to give it 100% at Fastlane and that’s a problem for Nakamura because a 100% Seth “Freakin” Rollins equals the Best Wrestler in the World. I’ve had a lot of positive things to say about this feud and I thought this segment, particularly Shinsuke’s promo, was good. However, I really don’t enjoy Last Man Standing matches (excluding Reigns-Lesnar at Summerslam 2022) and I’m almost certain that Nakamura suffered a loss to AJ Styles in a match with the exact same stipulation back in 2018.
Grade: B-
NXT North American Championship: Dominik Mysterio VS Dragon Lee, Nia Jax VS Zoey Stark, Miz TV (Featuring Drew McIntyre), Drew McIntyre VS Kofi Kingston
Jackie Redmond interviewed Ricochet backstage and The One and Only was on crutches. Ricochet said that once he’s healed, he’s going after Shinsuke Nakamura because he’s got unfinished business with him. I really, really do not want to see another Ricochet-Nakamura match. It was then time for a Championship match as Dominik Mysterio put his NXT North American Championship on the line against Dragon Lee. This was actually an entertaining bout that saw both guys put on a good performance. More importantly, though, the crowd got invested in this match and were cheering for Dragon Lee at the end which is a major W. Given the fact that this is Dominik Mysterio and Dom no longer has a match scheduled for NXT No Mercy this Saturday, I spent a lot of this match just waiting for a member of The Judgment Day (or JD McDonagh) to come to Mysterio’s aid. However, that didn’t happen as “Dirty” Dom dropped Dragon Lee on the top rope before he nailed him with a Frog Splash to get the victory. Everything about this match was good and Dominik has certainly improved in between the ropes since becoming the North American Champion.
Grade: B
Nia Jax was walking backstage which scared Akira Tozawa to death (this guy’s a joy) before Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn cut a backstage promo and said that tonight’s not about The Judgment Day or Jey Uso, it’s about reclaiming what’s rightfully there’s (the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships). Michael Cole then welcomed Nia Jax down to the ring and Nia called herself “The Baddest Human in WWE” which is certainly an interesting nickname. Jax then said she’ll squash anyone that gets in her way before Zoey Stark stormed down to the ring and dared Nia to attack her face-to-face, something she didn’t do last week. This led into a match between Jax and Stark and it was okay, it didn’t go very long and didn’t do much to make Zoey Stark look like a star. However, it also didn’t make Zoey look bad and showcased Nia as a dominant, irresistible force (pun intended). Jax won this match with her new finisher and the crowd wasn’t very happy about this.
Grade: C
Jey Uso told Byron Saxton backstage that he wants nothing to do with groups and all I really took from this was someone was actually being nice to Saxton for once. Now I know Jey is definitely acting like a good guy! Finn Balor then told Dominik Mysterio in “The Judgment Day Lounge” that Damian Priest is calming down, but he would be ready for tonight’s Main Event before it was time for another edition of Miz TV as The Miz welcomed out his guest, Drew McIntyre. The Miz asked Drew why he decided against helping Jey Uso last week and Drew responded by saying that he’s not here to save people. The New Day then arrived and said they weren’t impressed with this new side of The Scottish Warrior before McIntyre responded by saying “Why didn’t you come out and help him then” (he’s right). The best thing about all of this was every time The Miz tried to butt in, McIntyre kept telling him to shut up before he eventually delivered a Glasgow Kiss to The A-Lister. This was actually quite a fun edition of Miz TV as The Miz played his role superbly whilst I really like this version of Drew McIntyre. We then saw Chad Gable tell Ludwig Kaiser to send a message to Gunther on his behalf (backstage) before it was time for McIntyre-Kingston. Both of these guys are former WWE Champions who climbed the peak of the industry at WrestleMania. However, the big difference between the two guys is Kofi won his title in one of the loudest pops ever whilst Drew won it in an empty Performance Center. The reason I bring this up is because you could tell that McIntyre was hitting Kingston with more force because of it. Wade Barrett also had a great line about Xavier Woods playing the trombone and he was delighted when Ivar of The Viking Raiders attacked Woods at ringside. Interestingly, McIntyre watched this and did nothing and when Kofi went to get out of the ring to help his New Day brother, Drew pulled Kingston back into the ring and nailed him with a Claymore to get the victory. McIntyre then walked off and watched on as Ivar beatdown Kingston before he delivered another lovely Moonsault as Valhalla laughed. All of this was great. The action in the match was pretty decent, but the storytelling was superb and whilst all of this is meant to make me dislike Mr. McIntyre, it actually makes me like him a lot more (which isn’t a bad thing).
Grade: B+ (Miz TV, Match, and Post-Match Angle Combined)
Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships: The Judgment Day VS Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn
Gunther berated Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci backstage before he told Kaiser that Vinci is now his problem. Ivar and Valhalla then cut a very odd 2-line (if that) promo backstage before it was Main Event time as The Judgment Day put their Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships on the line against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. We’ve seen these four guys fight one another about 65,000 times at this point so most of the action was just normal. However, it got a bit mad towards the end as the NXT North American Champion Dominik Mysterio arrived and tried to cause distractions before “Main Event” Jey Uso arrived and started brawling with Dominik. JD McDonagh then appeared out of nowhere and started attacking Jey before Cody Rhodes ran down and a bunch of officials had to come down and break everything up. Meanwhile, back in the ring, Kevin Owens delivered a Stunner to Finn Balor before Sami Zayn met Damian Priest with the Helluva Kick. However, Judgment Day McDonagh, who’d avoided all the mess with the security guards, nailed Zayn in the head with the SmackDown Tag Team Title and this allowed Senor Money in the Bank to cover Sami to score the 3 count. This was a pretty mad ending and it got even more ridiculous as Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso were all of a sudden back and another brawl started and the show ended up ending before the brawl did which was bizarre. Overall, this was all pretty good stuff even if it was a bit chaotic. JD McDonagh being the reason that The Judgment Day won was a really good call though.
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