Raw opened with a shot of Triple H and Seth Rollins at WWE Headquarters, where HHH tells him that he is no longer the future, but he is the man now. They will reveal a statue of Seth tonight. In the actual arena, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman come out and they are pissed. Heyman does his usual masterful promo that says Brock wants a rematch with the Undertaker tonight. Instead of Taker, Brock gets Bo Dallas. NO BO! YOU'RE GONNA DIE! Hilariously, Bo calls him "Mr. Brock" and takes a trip to suplex city. Brock even leaves twice, only to come back and deliver more punishment, ending with the F5. You know, for basically being a jobber, Bo has had segments with Daniel Bryan, Brock, Sting, Rock and Shawn Michaels.
Our opening contest features the Lucha Dragons against the new Tag Champs, New Day. They came out singing a cover of "New York, New York" set to Xavier Woods on the trombone. Everything this group does is golden and that was clear here. They are simply fantastic. New Day defeats Lucha Dragons in entertaining fashion while the Prime Time Players are on commentary. Then, shit got real because the DUDLEY BOYZ showed up! The place went nuts and I legit marked out. They took out New Day with their signature stuff, including a 3D through a table. They even had a staredown with PTP, which I was happy about since they weren't just left to stand by and watch. I loved this as it was damn cool and gives the tag team division a shot in the arm. Raw is off to one hell of a start.
In that good old fashioned PPV rematch special, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns took on Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper again. They kind of just went through the motions for the most part. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the match they had at SummerSlam. Reigns looked to be on the verge of winning when the Wyatt signature hit. Then, this incredibly large top heavy man in a black sheep mask appeared. He removed it to reveal that he was someone we didn't recognize. He destroyed Ambrose and Reigns, resulting in a DQ finish, but the Wyatt Family grows. Good to see Bray have followers since his gimmick works better in a cult like setting. The man is Braun Stowman, but the reaction wasn't great since nobody knows who he is. Also, it looks like he seriously skips leg day.
A MizTV segment featuring the ladies of Team PCB followed and has become a big deal. However, for all of the wrong reasons. Miz tried to play up there being competition between the ladies, which should be the case. End all of this team stuff please. Instead, the girls remained friends. Out came Team Bella and the teams trade horribly forced barbs. Miz was an ass so PCB went after him, only to be attacked from behind and lead to a six woman tag. All of this happened while the crowd loudly chanted "We Want Sasha." The match happened and was a colossal failure. The crowd ended up chanting for CM Punk, doing the wave and even chanting the awful "We Are Awesome." No you weren't. Look, this was a poorly done segment but things like that are terrible and have no place. The Bellas won and, while I disagree with what the fans did, this goes back to the booking. Why should we care about this? The teams just trade wins and none of it matters. It's sad that two girls can have a classic two nights earlier and have the crowd in the palm of their hands, and then booked to the point where the crowd gives no fucks.
King Barrett came out for a tag match with Stardust. Instead, Stardust attacked him. Then Neville came out and sent him running. I don't get it. Jon Stewart then came out to explain his actions from SummerSlam. He says that he didn't want to see John Cena tie Ric Flair's record. This brings out Flair, who calls himself god and says that records are meant to be broken. Cena came out and fucking says that he's at peace with what Stewart did. Wow, way to make the match last night seem important. Cena ends it by hitting Stewart with an AA. Am I really supposed to cheer for this guy? Whatever. Then the camera shows Stewart walking the AA off. Man, that move really doesn't put anyone down does it?
I'm guessing that Dolph Ziggler didn't get the "debut new attire on the PPV" memo. He shows up in long pants for an eight man tag. His partners are Randy Orton, Ryback and Cesaro and they face Rusev, Big Show, Sheamus and Kevin Owens. The match was your typical multi-man tag and was decent fun but nothing we've never seen. Except for Owens mocking Ziggler's ass dance. That I'd never seen. Show made a mistake and hit the WMD on Sheamus, allowing Orton to pin him. Look at that everyone. Orton and the Bellas get their wins back, rendering SummerSlam useless. After the match, Owens and Rusev beat up Big Show for being shitty. Then, the faces decided to do something too and hit him with a massive team up assist RKO. Seeing Ryback and Cesaro lift Show was impressive.
It's time for the Seth Rollins statue reveal. Beforehand, the Authority kick John Cena out of the building. They sing happy birthday to Vince McMahon. Triple H puts over Seth for his Hustle, Loyalty and Respect. Seth shows up and does his best HHH impression with an overly long promo. They go to reveal the statue and Sting is there instead! He attacks and sends them packing. He holds up the WWE Title afterwards and it's announced on the WWE Network that he'll get a title shot at Night of Champions for some reason. Look, the surprise was cool and the match should be fun. In order for me to enjoy it though, I'm going to have to forget about the WrestleMania debacle involving the handshake with Triple and the loss. Overall, I'd say that this Raw ended up being a mixed bag. The first hour was excellent, the ending was fun but the middle was awful. Also, not having Sasha Banks, at the very least, appear on the show after her performance on Saturday is insane. 7/10.
