Live from Flair Country, beautiful Greensboro, North Carolina, it's not the longest running weekly episodic show in cable television history, but it is Monday Night Raw. News for the past week: Emma's hurt, rumors swirling that Owens and AJ are injured too, Rollins is back working off ring rust in Orlando, and Cena will be returning in two weeks! Let's get on with the show, I guess, but what's the point in a post-Emma world.
AJ is out to start the show. He says his friendship with Doc and Karl isn't a masterplan or a conspiracy. They're just friends and AJ knows he can stand on his own against Roman because wrestling big shows isn't new to him. He's won championships all around the world and headlined the Tokyo Dome. Roman hits the ring and his music is inaudible over the boos. Roman says that AJ's accomplishments are meaningless because they weren't in the WWE. The crowd chants "we want Rollins" and Roman says that they're not getting Rollins, they've got Roman and AJ. He says he'll be in the Usos' corner when they wrestle the Club tonight. AJ says he'll be in the Club's corner and also everywhere Roman is until he beats him. Roman says AJ wants a wrestling match but Roman is going to go extreme on him at Extreme Rules. Roman says he knows AJ can't beat him one on one so the Usos will deal with the Club. He calls himself and Usos "The Frontline." I bet that's giving AJ flashbacks. Gallows and Gun's music hits and they come down the ramp. The Usos jump AJ while he's distracted by the Club's music. Karl and Luke drag AJ up the ramp. Yo, there's a couple Samoan guys in facepaint in the Frontline...
Miz out on commentary and out comes Kevin Owens. He insults a woman in the crowd, shuts the Miz up by yelling at Maryse in French, then says he calls his frog splash the Six Star Frog Splash when Cole tries to call it the Bullfrog Splash. Sami and Cesaro come down to wrestle here on the Kevin Owens Show. The match almost immediately breaks down when Owens throws Miz into the ring and the match gets thrown out as a double DQ I think. Shane O'Mac comes out and books a tag team match, Cesaro and Sami vs Owens and Miz. Stephanie then comes out and changes it to a relevos increibles, Miz and Cesaro vs Steenerico. Oh god, Steenerico reunion.
The match is in progress when we return from commercial break. Cesaro is the actual best as he does the bunch of kip ups out of an armwrench spot. Finally the match breaks down, Miz tries to giant swing Sami. Cesaro gets offended and lays the Miz out with the skull crushing finale. Owens drags Cesaro out of the ring and lays him out. Sami finishes the Miz off with the Helluva Kick and a pin. Owens rolls back into the ring and interrupts Sami's celebration by laying him out and then makes the ref raise his hand because he "won too." He leaves the ringside area yelling that he's going to win back his title.
Backstage, Renee tries to interview Jericho. Ambrose says he's going to talk about Jericho in the ring tonight. Jericho says that Ambrose is going to apologize for destroying his jacket. He spits all over Renee while saying his jacket was more iconic than Andre the Giant. He then tells her to "hit the bricks."
The Colons come out, billed as the Shining Stars. They say Puerto Rico is better than North Carolina. No kidding, huh. They're going to wrestle some local guys I don't recognize. Epico does a brainbuster that gets called as a brainbuster. Why can't Zayn do that again? The Shining Stars hit their finisher, The Shining Star, that I think is just the Ascension's finisher? Leg sweep/Enziguri combo. After their match they invite everyone in the crowd to come to Puerto Rico.
Dean Ambrose out for the 9pm segment to address Chris Jericho. People seem very into this feud but I sure don't care about it at all. Ambrose says he didn't like it when Jericho put him in a straight jacket. He felt like he was in jail and that made something in his head snap. He calls Jericho out right now. Jericho comes out and demands his apology for the destruction of a $15,000 jacket. Jericho says that he's the real lunatic because there's nobody in the WWE crazier than Jericho because he's faced every freak the WWE has thrown at him. He has no remorse and won't shed a tear when he destroys Ambrose at Extreme Rules. He says he's going to give Dean the gift of Jericho. Dean says he has a gift for him. A steel cage lowers from the rafters but dangling from the cage is weapons. Jericho vs Ambrose will be a Cage of Death match, straight out of CZW but instead of light tubes and barbed wire there's wacky weapons like a mop. Gotta love it.
Backstage, Dana Brooke insults people. She's Tammy from Bob's Burgers. Emma was an excellent Jocelyn. Rest in peace, Emma.
Becky Lynch vs Dana Brooke is quick when Dana gets a flash pin on Becky after a few minutes of clumsy but competent wrestling.
A Darren Young/Bob Backlund vignette airs. Bob asks Darren what time it is and Darren pulls out his phone. Bob says not to call the operator and waste her time to ask her what time it is, just look at your watch. Darren says nobody wears a watch anymore. Bob says being on time is very important. Bob Backlund punishes Darren for using his phone by making him do 200 squats. Make Darren Young Great Again. These vignettes rule, but I can't help but wish Bob got to be a little more unhinged.
The Dudleys walk in on Shane and Stephanie talking backstage. They ask for some jobbers to squash. Instead, Shane books one of the Dudleys, their choice, in a match against Big Cass. Shane turns to Stephanie and says "how you doin'."
They play a video package for Goldust and R-Truth using a "Leave The Memories Alone" soundalike. After Breeze and Fandango turned on their respective other halves in Gorgeous Truth and Goldango, Goldust sacrificed his body to protect R-Truth and now they are finally a tag team. The video package makes that Smackdown angle seem absolutely amazing.
Golden Truth come down the ramp to the dulcet tones of What's Up. They wrestle BREEZANGO which is definitely either a Legend of Zelda enemy or a Pokemon. BREEZANGO win.
Backstage, Goldust is storming off but Truth stops him. Truth says they just have to work out the kinks and get their juices flowing and their feng shui and chakra and all that. Truth says the WWE Universe wants the Golden Truth and so does he. BREEZANGO run in on the chat and call Golden Truth the Golden Girls. Goldust says that they need to get their chakra aligned and Golden Truth hugs.
A weird structure is in the ring covered with a sheet. AWWWWW GREENSBORO! ITS A NEW DAY, YES IT IS. Big E has a box of Booty Os and he's pouring the invisible cereal into fans waiting mouths at ringside. They reveal the structure, it is a New Day-lorean. Big E says its a refrigerator box with a jizzy keyboard glued to it. Xavier Woods gets everyone to step into the time machine anyway. The camera goes wacky and time travel music plays. Kofi's old music starts playing and he steps out of the box with the Jamaican accent. Xavier says they didn't go back far enough but Kofi protests. "2000 WAS MY BEST YEAR, LEAVE ME HERE!" The next time the New Day step out, the camera is in black and white and they have mustaches. The Booty O box has turned into Derriere Squares. Holy cow this rules. Of course the Vaudevillians are from the past because the past sucked. The Vaudevillians run in and jump the New Day, turning the camera back to color. They put Xavier Woods through the time machine and then hit him with their move that I've already forgot the name of. They stand tall with their music playing.
The Club with AJ are out for their match with the Usos who are accompanied by the Big Dog, the Guy, Roman Reigns. When the crowd erupts with deafening boos for Roman, JBL says Roman can change the atmosphere in any arena. Karl puts Jey in a headlock and gets his facepaint all up in his armpit and I bet that'll be hell to wash out later. JBL says Karl and Gallows are reminiscent of the classic Japanese tag teams like Stan Hansen and Dr Death, who, as far as I know only tagged once and in 1996. Mauro wouldn't have messed up that reference. The crowd chants "We Want Rollins." After Karl does a spinebuster, JBL says Arn has a "big bear-like grin on himself right now." The match starts to breakdown but the Usos clear the ring with Early Onset Alzheimer's to Luke and Karl then finish it with a superfly splash on Karl for the win. After the match Roman and AJ square off but Gallows hits Roman into AJ. The Usos chase the Club out of the ring and the four men brawl at ringside. A chair appears in the ring. AJ recovers before Roman and picks up the chair. AJ swings at Roman but Roman counters before it hits with an uppercut. He gains control of the chair and waffles AJ with it. Luke and Karl try to make the save but Roman superman punches him. This allows AJ the chance to recover however and he grabs the chair and breaks it over Roman's back. He sets him up for the Clash on the chair. Roman lands face first on the mat and it looks grody, like AJ couldn't pick him up high enough. The replay doesn't look nearly as bad though, maybe it was just the angle.
Big Cass out for his match against a Dudley. Cass cuts a promo where he calls D-Von Steve Urqel and Bubba Ray Fred Flintstone but he references the Buh Buh stuttering gimmick which is a bummer! It's probably not great to make fun of people with speech impediments, even if they were worked and also happened twenty years ago. Anyway the match is Big Cass vs D-Von. D-Von takes a powder and Bubba gets a table, distracting Cass and allowing D-Von to roll back into the ring and get the upper hand on the very tall Cass. Cass big boots Bubba Ray and lays D-Von out with the East River Crossing for the win in a very short match, the fourth such match tonight. After the match Cass spells it out for the Dudleys, they're SAWFT.
Del Rio vs Kalisto is the next match. For some reason they cut to Sin Cara backstage watching the match. I guess they're teasing a breakup between Kalisto and Sin Cara for some reason. Maybe we'll get rudo Sin Cara again, the "new" Sin Cara is real good in that role. While Del Rio and Kalisto continue to wrestle, Sin Cara appears on the big screen. Del Rio pins Kalisto to the ropes and makes him watch the titantron while Rusev appears and attacks Sin Cara, slamming him violently into the wall and then dragging his corpse away. This, of course, prompts the crowd to chant "We Want Lana." Del Rio and Kalisto wrestle to a stalemate when Sin Cara starts crawling down the ramp followed by Rusev. Kalisto ignores them to concentrate on Del Rio. Rusev starts slamming Sin Cara into the post over and over again and this finally distracts Kalisto long enough for Del Rio to get him with the backstabber and win the match. Del Rio skedaddles after the match and Rusev crawls into the ring to put the finishing touches on Kalisto. He superkicks Kalisto in the back of the head and puts him in the Accolade. It is a real gross looking Accolade like he's bending him in half, Liontamer-esque is the angle Rusev gets on it. He then grabs the US title and rubs it in Kalisto's face while screaming in Bulgarian. Rusev is cool.
Shane and Stephanie are in the ring for the Nattie/Charlotte contract signing. Shane is still teasing Stephanie about the crowd hating her even though she's being nice for some reason and they're friends now. She tries to get a "Stephie Mac" chant going. They bring Charlotte (with Ric) and Nattie out. It is 11pm, its weird that this is the main event! Maybe not weird, surprising. It feels like that women's submission match isn't the draw for Extreme Rules. Nattie calls Ric creepy and says Charlotte doesn't need to rely on his dirty tricks. She signs the contract. Charlotte says that North Carolina is "her people" to a mixed reaction. She then threatens to punch everyone in the crowd's best friends in the face and then starts to get mostly boos. When she compares herself to Ric, she gets unanimous boos. She insults Nattie a few more times and makes a gross face when she says "Nattie." She finally signs the contract while like three dudes in the crowd chant USA for some reason. She looks at the second sheet on the contract and refuses to sign. Ric asks Shane what he's trying to pull. Shane says the added clause is if Flair even shows his face on the ramp, Charlotte gets stripped of the title. Shane then has security remove Flair from ringside for the duration of the contract signing and Stephanie says that if Charlotte doesn't sign, she will be immediately stripped of the title. Ric also signs for some reason. Ric then flips his lid and starts screaming at Stephanie, calling her the worst businesswoman of all time. Shane sticks up for her and Ric takes off his jacket and watch. He starts getting worked up. He says that Shane is going to be carried out. Shane begs Ric to just leave the ring because he has too much respect to wrestle him. Stephanie says that she has no respect for Ric and lays him out with a single slap. Of course Stephanie has to be the one to get the shine from Ric. Nattie puts Charlotte in the Sharpshooter and steals her belt as Raw goes off the air.
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