Instead of the Authority opening with a promo, we get Roman Reigns. It's not much better. He gets what's becoming his trademark 50/50 reaction. If John Cena is any indication, that means the WWE sees Roman as the most over guy in the company. He cuts a short promo and botches at one point but it's not bad. Daniel Bryan interrupts to a much better pop. They hype Fast Lane until the Authority interrupts. No surprise here huh? After Bryan makes a Katie Vick mention (which ends up trending), they book Bryan and Reigns vs. Big Show and Kane. Stop me if you've heard this before. And I would be okay if it just mashed two matches together so we saw less of Show and Kane, but this ends via disqualification and they book ANOTHER match for later. Kane, Show, Seth Rollins and J&J Security against Reigns and Bryan. Why do this again? Of course this was done because Bryan accidentally hit Reigns after the match and now they're having "issues". The issues are incredibly forced. Of course, because we somehow have a limited roster, Rollins also pulls double duty as he faces Ryback now. And it's short and ends in another DQ. That's a trademark of lazy booking. The first forty-five minutes has not only been dedicated to the Authority, but had two matches with non-finishes in a row. Not good.
We get a Sheamus video package because he's returning soon. Paige was in the ring as we returned, which means my pants were gone. She had writing on her arm in tribute to Drew McDonald, a European wrestler who passed away earlier in the day. She took on Brie Bella, and it seems like her partnership with Natalya is all but dead. Because she was pissed about last week, Paige came out aggressively and won, but only after a miscommunication by the Bellas. She should have won completely cleanly. Rusev and Lana came out to "pay tribute" to John Cena by playing a video of his highlights before it turned to a video of him getting destroyed. Fine stuff. Cena appears, sporting a black eye and says his usual stuff. He actually tells Rusev to jump if he's feeling froggy and Rusev runs down and fights him. That was great because I'm tired of chickenshit heels. Rusev is just a monster. He takes out Cena and is all like "you can't even see me." This segment was good for Rusev. Last week, Bray Wyatt and Dolph Ziggler had a great match, and with neither guy having anything to do, they do it again here. They stole the show this week, but it sucks that Dolph has nothing to do. He was the sole survivor and killed the Authority for a short while, but it has led nowhere. Bray disposes of him again as he continues his rise to potentially face Undertaker at WrestleMania while Dolph continues his trek to, most likely, the Andre the Giant Battle Royal. Someone else should have done the job. Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman are now here, which leads to a really good Heyman promo as always. He promotes Fast Lane, while also hyping up Brock. The only real problem here is that this accomplished nothing. Why waste a Brock appearance on this?
Triple H called out Sting, so that he can accept being called out at Fast Lane. Yup, I can't make this stuff up. Before that though, the New Day took on Goldust and Stardust. Once again, Stardust leaves Goldust, as we're back to teasing a Rhodes brothers split. New Day wins. The fans don't care. Backstage, Stardust says "Cody is dead." Triple H is out and talks about Sting before we get crow sound effects and a video package that says "I Accept." Also, a terrible, nWo like, Fake Sting appears to scare Triple H and he quickly goes away. It was cool, even though the Fake Sting looked AWFUL. At least they didn't waste a Sting appearance here. Over the past few weeks, Cesaro and Tyson Kidd have bested the Usos in singles matches. Tonight, they get a non-title match and it was good. Kidd and Cesaro picked up the win, setting up a title match at Fast lane I believe. That should potentially steal the show because all four guys can go. After the loss, it's announced that Rikishi is going into the Hall of Fame. So the Usos celebrate and dance. Yea, that loss really matters huh?
Last week, The Miz lost to Sin Cara because of Damien Mizdow. Now it's Mizdow vs. Cara and Cara wins because of Miz. So your former Tag Champs both lose and Cara continues to win but I bet it won't mean anything. Another Bray Wyatt promo continues as he tries to build his match with Undertaker alone. Curtis Axel is out next, to hype AxelMania again. He's treated like a joke, even though he could be a key contributor to the mid-card. Not good. Dean Ambrose appears and beats him quickly. This happened last Monday and on Smackdown. Can we not think of anything different? Bad News Barrett appears and we get THE SAME THING WE GOT ON SMACKDOWN. Terribly. Main event time and it was what you would expect. The faces were outnumbered, so Ryback, Dolph Ziggler and meaningless Erick Rowan appear. Odd that Dolph helps here, but didn't help the Big Guy earlier tonight. Anyway, as Bryan is nearing the win, Reigns tags himself in and Spears Mercury. This leads to Bryan and Reigns arguing and Reigns spears him to close the show. This is how Roman should be booked. Not as John Cena 2.0. He has a chip on his shoulder and is playing the "take no prisoners" badass, while Bryan stood up to him. The match was only decent at best, but the close to the show was good.
In the end, this was a pretty mediocre episode of Raw. I enjoyed Bray/Dolph, even though I'm not a fan of the booking, the Usos vs. Kidd and Cesaro and the close to the show. Everything else was only alright at best. Repeating stuff from Smackdown is never good and the lazy booking of some matches killed me. 4.5/10.
