I tuned in late to find Big E and Xavier Woods defending the tag team titles via Freebird rules against Alberto Del Rio and Rusev. The first thing I see is Big E spanking Rusev to the New Day Rocks chant followed by the Unicorn Stampede. Xavier finds the time to play the trombone despite being in the match. The League take over the match with Del Rio's great running enzuigiri and Rusev puts Woods in a series of bearhugs. Xavier hits Rusev with a DDT, sets Del Rio up for the spear through the ropes but Del Rio counters with a knee and does his double stomp and it actually looks good for the first time ever. Rusev lays out Xavier but Woods miraculously kicks out at two. Rusev sets Xavier up for the Accolade. Kofi tries to get involved but Rusev sends Sheamus and Barrett after him. Kofi clears them out and Xavier rolls Rusev up for three using the tights. After the match, the League beat down the New Day. Rusev rips off Kofi's shirt and punts it out of the ring. Barrett hits Kofi with the Bullhammer, Sheamus hits Big E with the Brogue Kick. Xavier tries to fire back but gets overwhelmed and Del Rio hits his terrible double stomp finisher on him. Rusev then puts him in the Accolade while Barrett and Sheamus sit inches from his face and scream at him.
Dean Ambrose is out next wearing a leather jacket zipped all the way up. Dean says he was close to bringing Mardi Gras to Pittsburgh and JBL says "You're out of bounds, you dope!" Dean says he lives and dies by his sword and the crowd chants "let's go Ambrose." Lesnar comes out next with Paul trailing behind. Heyman says he is Dean's only protection from Lesnar tonight. Dean dares him to take the Beast off his leash. Heyman says in order for Brock to draw a big
Ryback wrestles Sin Cara. The Big Guy vs the Masked Guy. Ryback beats up Sin Cara and pins him. Ryback gets on the mic and says "that's what happens when a good big guy meets a good little guy." He also calls Kalisto "little guy" and challenges him to a match at Wrestlemania for the United States Championship so he can show him that size does matter. Has Ryback been talking to the Hulkster? Stephanie next.
Stephanie comes out doing a muted rendition of Emma's dance for some reason and a big grin on her face. She welcomes us to Raw despite watching it for an hour and brings out Triple H. Triple H does his thing about how Ambrose couldn't beat him. He says the crowd relates to Ambrose and Reigns because they hope they can beat the Authority but there's no hope for Ambrose or Reigns and there's no hope for the crowd. He's doing the exact reverse of the hard times promo. He says that the people in the crowd tonight live their lives hoping that things will get better and blaming authority for not letting it get better. Eventually, they will start simply hoping for death to release them from their misery. This is a dark promo. The Authority always wins. Ziggler's music hits and he comes out wearing a suit. I hope Hunter just pedigrees him. I: hope he pedigrees him so hard he goes through the mat and is never seen again. Dolph says he knows his place and that place is in the ring, busting his ass for the WWE Universe. I smell a worked shoot. Stephanie says Dolph is pretty talented but not that good and he should know his role and shut his mouth. Dolph asks her if she's going to fire him because he's sick of being threatened and has nothing left to lose. He's never going to quit, unfortunately for us. Dolph says HHH cut his promo on him and not Ambrose and Reigns for some reason. He says he's been screwed by the system and dares Stephanie to fire him. Triple H offers him an opportunity to buy into the Authority. Dolph says he would rather die and calls Stephanie "idiotic" like he's CM Punk or something. Stephanie slaps Dolph and says she'll let him book himself in any match, besides the world title match, as long as he can win one match tonight. Stephanie says this match will break his spirit and turn him into a shell. The match is against Triple H. Undertaker and Shane meet later tonight.
Kevin Owens is on commentary for the next match between Sami Zayn and The Miz. Sami's match on Saturday was absurdly bad and the match tonight is better, I guess. Zayn beats The Miz with the Helluva kick.
Backstage, the League challenge the New Day to a Wrestlemania match.
Brie Bella and Alicia Fox come out to Brie Mode, the best theme in the WWE today. They'll be wrestling Team BAD, Tamina and Naomi. Lana comes down to ringside to scout Brie I guess. Team BAD win. Lana distracts Alicia so Team BAD can hit her with a double superkick/Early Onset Alzheimers.
The Social Outcasts plug the BK Grilled Dogs. Their made with beef, like Curtis, they're flame grilled, like Heath, they come with relish, like Adam, and they're available now, like Bo. Relish is just chopped up pickles though and Curtis tells us to look that fact up.
Backstage Lana burns Paige and says hanging out with the Total Divas cast is ruining her life. Paige threatens Lana but Team BAD shows up as Lana's muscle.
Somewhere else backstage, Renee interviews Charlotte. She says she knew Becky and Sasha before they were Divas and tears them down. She says Sasha puked from nerves a lot. Ric says that Charlotte is better than the other two. She says something about Smackdown.
Time for the Usos. They're wrestling the Social Outcasts while the Dudley Boyz sit at ringside. Bo and Adam are representing the Outcasts this week. I hate these four men. The Usos win despite the Dudleys distracting, I think. I kind of stopped paying attention because the Outcasts were on the screen.
Backstage, Dean is talking to the one, the only, the Mickster, Mick Foley. Mick tells him wrestling Brock is a bad idea because he's going to get hurt. It is a certainty. Mick asks him "Why?" Dean asks him how he felt on top of the cell against the Undertaker right here in cheap heat Pittsburgh. Mick says yes but he kept going because he was Mick Foley and that's what he did. Dean says he's Dean Ambrose, and this is what he does. Mick tells Dean to reach into his past and bring Brock to a place considerably more dangerous than a suplex or a crowbar. He gives Dean a box and says bang bang before leaving the room. Dean opens the box to find a barbed wire bat. He smiles. When Mick mentioned Dean's past, my mind went to "skillsaw" way before barbed wire. It went skillsaw, light tube, pane of glass, and tacks before barbed wire bat to be honest.
The ten o'clock segment tonight is the Ziggler/H match. I was worried about Triple H having to sell Dolph's bad offense and it making him look like a chump but it turns out I was worried for no reason as Triple H does not sell anything at all for 15 minutes. Dolph catches Hunter with an upkick as he comes off the top rope for a flying nothing. Dolph does his flying clotheslines, stinger splash, swinging neckbreaker, jumping elbow drop, the works, only gets a two count. Triple H reverses a superkick into a double underhook but Dolph reverses the pedigree into a jacknife pin. Triple H kicks out at two and a half, Dolph immediately follows up with the fameasser, and Triple H kicks out at 2.9. Triple H kicks out of all of Dolph's moves at 2.9. Over and over again. Leaping DDT, superkick, everything. I think he's practicing for all the kicking out at 2.9 he's going to have to do at Wrestlemania against Roman. Finally HHH counters the Zig Zag with the Pedigree and wins. Triple H exhaustedly celebrates after his match when Roman's music hits. Triple H is looking at the stands for Roman to come through but Roman comes out the entrance way to a fairly mixed reaction, but more positive than I expected. Roman isn't wearing his vest, just a sleeveless shirt and he runs down to beat up Triple H. He slams HHH into the announce table just like Hunter did to him several weeks ago. Roman removes the monitors from the announce table as referees run down to stop him from putting the boss through the table. He shoves Lil Naitch and chases the other refs off. Triple H recovers while Roman is going after the refs and hits him with a can of soda or beer or something. Mountain Dew Kickstart maybe. Roman just lays into Triple H against the barricade while a girl in the front row loses her god damn mind. Roman and Triple H brawl out of the ringside area, back to where the tech stuff is, where Mark Henry threw that guy into the void that one time. They then make their way backstage. Triple H is all bloody and Roman is attacking security, which buys Hunter enough time to to get a chair but Roman throws a trash can over top of the security guys and knocks the chair out of HHH's hands. Roman grabs an LCD TV and breaks it over Triple H's back. The Usos, Mark Henry, and JACK SWAGGER come out and talk Roman out of actually killing Triple H with a television, allowing Triple H to escape. They figured out how to make Roman cool again until they had those four goobers get involved. Still, that was pretty cool. We so rarely get an actual backstage brawl anymore, I'm glad to see it.
Jacqueline is being inducted into the hall of fame. Truth is dressed like a penguin and quacking at Goldust. Goldust says he's dressed like a penguin 'cause they're in Pittsburgh and its not very creative, Truth isn't aware he's in Pittsburgh. Truth says in the hood the closest thing to a penguin he had was an old pidgeon. Penguins mate for life so Truth wants Dust to be his penguin partner. Goldie says no. Truth says "that was cold" and waddles off screen. Was that guerrilla advertising for the new WWE Surf's Up film??
Jericho is up next. He cuts a promo on AJ. The entire set is dark for some reason. He's still upset that the fans like AJ more than him! He says AJ isn't as good as the WWE Universe thinks he is. Jericho says last week proved to AJ who the boss is, who the general is, and who AJ's daddy is. Neville's comet soars and his music hits. They stopped calling Neville the new sensation finally, just calling him the man that gravity forgot. JBL says any time you get beat up, the person who beat you up becomes your daddy. Everyone knows this. I was AFK but I presume Jericho beat Neville because AJ then came out and did his springboard elbow to Y2J. Dish Network is threatening to drop NBC Universal channels like USA and Cole wants you to make your voice heard if you love the WWE and are a Dish subscriber.
Mr. McMahon's music plays as the chairman comes down the ramp. He mugs at a guy at ringside in a CM Punk shirt holding a "VINCE IS BOOTY" sign, screaming "Booty" at Vince. Vince makes Lilian Garcia announce him again because he didn't get a big enough ovation. He says on the Monday after Wrestlemania Shane has promised he'll come out to usher in a new era of WWE. But that's just a dream, and the reality is Vincent K. McMahon and his 52" chest. He says he's going to make Shane impotent at Wrestlemania. He brags that the Undertaker is going to do his dirty work for him in making Shane impotent and says that Taker is depraved. The bell tolls and out comes the dead man. Taker takes almost four minutes to make his entrance. Vince orders him to never put his hands on him ever again but will forgive him for the last time and apologizes for bringing it up in the first place. Vince says Taker is sadistic and wont mind destroying Shane. Taker looks at Vince wordlessly. Vince refers to the union between him and the Undertaker as an "unholy alliance" and "best for business." Shane's music hits and he comes down in a pair of excellent Nike sneakers. Shane says Vince isn't best for business anymore. Shane says he's been watching tape and formulating a gameplan. Shane says "you're gonna go to hit me and I'm gonna miss. You're gonna miss." The crowd doesn't even chant "you fucked up" at him, a shameful crowd. He has a whole big plan that involves mostly just being faster than the Undertaker and having heart. Taker says "it ain't gonna be enough." He says that he has "these" and shows Shane his MMA gloves. He says his MMA gloves are his legacy. Shane says Taker has a great legacy which is why its weird seeing him act as Vince's puppet. Taker says no one controls him. Shane says he might be Vince's son, but Taker is just Vince's bitch. Taker goes to chokeslam Shane but he ducks out and does his bad punches. Vince shoves Shane from behind into Taker's clutches though and Shane eats a clothesline anyway. Taker then chases Vince out of the ring before he can gloat. I feel like that should maybe have opened the show and it could have closed with the Roman stuff? The Roman brawl was a lot higher energy. Oh well.
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