SUPLEX CITY BITCH! Brock Lesnar jogs out to the stage to open this week's show, giving us a different feel from the usual Authority opening promo. Paul Heyman tells us that Brock is off suspension but he has to apologize to commentary. Brock gives Michael Cole a noogie while saying sorry which was funny. The rest of the segment was just Heyman putting over the Brock/Seth match. Acceptable stuff here because of how good Heyman is. Our opening contest pits Dean Ambrose against Kane. Stop me if you've heard this one before. You know what bugs me? How every single match has to have the "person falls outside so we can go to commercial break" spot. Annoying. Seth Rollins distracts Ambrose, allowing Kane to win. Kane shouldn't be going over guys like Ambrose in 2015, but I guess it will lead to Ambrose/Kane at Battleground or something. As usual with Kane in 2015, I couldn't care less.
In the back, Seth Rollins attempts to get back into Kane's good graces since he needs help. The Prime Time Players come out for a non-title match against the Ascension. It is announced that at Battleground they defend the belts against New Day. PTP obviously win while New Day watches in the back. Fine stuff. To headline hour one, Sheamus takes on Roman Reigns. Sheamus pinned Reigns in the Smackdown tag team main event. This was a solid hard hitting match, but it seemed pretty heatless. Like the fans were just waiting for the Bray Wyatt interruption, which we got. He came on the titantron, seemingly having a tea party with Roman's daughter, but as Roman gave chase, it is revealed he was talking to an empty rocking chair. Roman is counted out I guess, though it is never officially announced. When he finds where Wyatt was, it's empty but there's a recording of Bray singing "I'm a Little Teapot" and a strange shrine to Roman. The pictures of him had his eyes and mouth cut out. I'll admit, most Wyatt stuff tends to run together, but this was serial killer like and I dug it.
Now we get Seth Rollins trying to get J&J Security back on his side but they decline too. Neville takes on Kofi Kingston next to extend Neville's friendship with PTP and their feud with New Day. PTP came out to help, leading to New Day getting ejected and Neville winning. I just wish Neville had more to him than "the guy who hits the Red Arrow" though. There is a lot more he can do. An ad airs for the July 4th Japan WWE Network special, which now starts at 530AM. I guess I won't be getting up for that. King Barrett defeats Zack Ryder next, because this is about the only match he can win these days. R-Truth's pre-match insert promo was the best thing about this. Barrett should have squashed him though, as it was too competitive. John Cena shows up, back from the apron powerbomb. He's much stronger than Sami Zayn isn't he? He talks about how important the US Title is and how disrespectful Kevin Owens is. Owens showed up and agreed that the US Title is a symbol of excellence and he wants it to be a symbol of his excellence. He played off Cena's need for approval and pulled out the "evil foreigner" gimmick by speaking in French. Brilliant considering the pretty bad Rusev/Cena feud earlier this year. Cena said it's not about Owens being foreign, but then proceeds to speak in TRUE INDIANA AMERICAN when he agrees to defend the title against him at Battleground.
Rollins complains to Stephanie and HHH who suggest that he apologize to J&J and Kane. He will do that tonight. Since Alicia Fox helped Brie Bella on Smackdown, she accompanies the Bellas to ringside in their merchandise. I don't get it. The Bellas work a short match and beat Tamina and Naomi. But the real question is...why? There was no advancement for the Bellas/Paige feud. I get that Paige was off doing Tough Enough, but we couldn't get a pre-taped promo or something. It's just lazy and boring. This accomplished absolutely nothing and had no substance. The Divas division continues to be an albatross and one of the worst booked things in the entire company right now.
Ryback faced Mark Henry with Big Show on commentary. Ryback/Show/Miz is announced for Battleground. Ryback wins with a frog splash and is then interviewed backstage by Jojo. He calls himself Flyback, which made me laugh. Show interrupts and they brawl backstage. No Miz involvement. In our "main event" Adam Rose faces Dolph Ziggler. Lana is wearing less makeup than usual and accompanies Dolph all the way to the ring. Rose and Rosa get mic time to discuss their love and it grossed me out. Ziggler wins before making out with Lana, who lets her hair out of the bun. Rusev watches in the back and is sad. I felt bad for him as he threw his crutch and fell. That is until Summer Rae showed up looking great. She helps Rusev up and I guess things aren't all bad for him. I mean, he's gone from one of the most feared men in the company to an emotional wreck, but Summer Rae isn't a bad prize at all.
Our final segment features Seth Rollins coming out to apologize to J&J and Kane. He says sorry and it's dull until Brock Lesnar comes out. J&J and Kane seem to ditch Seth, but get involved. Brock takes them out, and actually unfortunately injures Jamie Noble. Noble was stretchered out and suffered three broken ribs. Brock takes Seth to Suplex City a few times until Kane gets involved. The numbers game takes its toll and it leads to Seth standing tall. I get that Seth needs to seem like some sort of threat to Brock but 2015 Kane should in no way be effective to the man who pretty much murdered John Cena and Roman Reigns. They're building towards Battleground decently but this Raw just felt like it was on autopilot. I don't think the episode was terrible, it just felt like nothing special was happening at all. Everything feels the same, like it's a copy of a copy of a copy. 4/10.
