For the third straight week, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman come out first on Raw. The Heyman/Lesnar opening segment is the new Authority opening segment. Heyman did his usual thing as Brock stood there doing his usual standing. Seth Rollins and Kane appear and they bicker before announcing there will be a contract signing later. They try to hype the next match as a "WWE All-Star Team" but that's not the case. Sheamus and Big Show took on Ryback and Randy Orton. They worked through a commercial and got about fifteen minutes. It was solid but nothing to write home about. The crowd was surprisingly hot for this segment, which was won by Orton and Ryback. As usual, the Money in the Bank winner took the pin here because it's still more important to protect Big Show.
Next, we were supposed to get Bray Wyatt vs. Dean Ambrose and I'm so happy that it didn't happen. We've seen it a ton and it killed Dean's momentum last year. Instead, Roman Reigns appeared and attacked him. It was nice build for Sunday and allowed Reigns to get some revenge. Our next was the best part of the show. Nikki Bella, flanked by Alicia Fox and Brie, came out to talk trash. Stephanie McMahon interrupted and said that Nikki needs new challengers. She brings out Paige and then debuts Becky Lynch and Charlotte! They side with Paige as I marked out. Naomi and Tamina came out next, leading to the debut of SASHA FUCKING BANKS! I went nuts in my house. She sided with Naomi & Tamina, and this led to a huge brawl. The NXT girls stole the show, putting their respective submissions on Team Bella. This was a really good segment that got the kind of reaction it needed to. The crowd loved it and hopefully, this means a ton of good things for the Divas division. The biggest issue with this was how Stephanie just decided to play the face here.
Following that, we move into a series of segments that were a letdown after that Divas high. The Prime Time Players and Mark Henry (who is randomly face again) defeated the New Day. For some reason Henry got the pin. Then R-Truth beat King Barrett in another in their never ending series of matches. Time for the John Cena US Title Open Challenge, where things picked up. No promo from him, which is a welcome surprise. Rusev comes out to answer, but then Kevin Owens shows up and wants to win the title tonight, instead of Sunday. Cesaro interrupts him and I think we're getting a tag. Instead, we get a triple threat with the winner getting the shot. The Triple Threat makes three straight weeks with a fantastic Cesaro match. This got about 24 minutes and was excellent. Owens walked out midway through since he has a shot Sunday, leaving Cesaro and Rusev to kill it. Rusev was able to win this amazing match. Just all around great stuff from everyone involved.
Rusev is out of breath and nearly dying as his match with John Cena starts. Cena is in control throughout, until Rusev counters the AA into the Accolade. Before anything else could happen, Kevin Owens runs out to cause the disqualification. This was a good way to building Rusev back up, but it kind of made him seem face here. Stardust returned by cutting a backstage promo, even weaving some Dusty Rhodes lines into it. He faced Neville and we got the cool graphic to the left. Stardust won the match with a handful of tights. I like seeing Stardust win but remember when Neville was giving Cena, Seth and Sheamus runs for their money? Now he's kind of just there. He's literally just the guy with the cool finisher. He's Evan Bourne.
Our closing segment on this episode was of course, the Battleground contract signing. Paul Heyman said the same thing he always says to promote the match. Brock Lesnar flips the table over to reveal that Seth Rollins had a hidden axe handle under it. Seth quickly took it back so Brock threw the table at him. Brock went nuts and basically killed Kane in a good segment. Seth ran away to close the show as Brock stood tall with the WWE Title. This was a good way to build the Battleground main event. Overall, this was a step up for Raw from recent weeks. Granted, it had some bad, like the few segments that were pretty much just there, but there was a lot of good. The Triple Threat match, the closing segment and especially seeing the NXT girls on Raw were all highlights. 7.5/10.
