Live from beautiful Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, Monday Night Raw is here! It's been a fairly slow news week. Last week's ratings were down but not down by that much despite the basketball game breaking records. WWE fans really don't care about real sports. Speaking of which, Brock Lesnar is going back to the UFC to fight Mark Hunt next month but is still employed by the WWE. That's about it. Let's start the show!
Raw starts in medias res as Ambrose comes down the ramp to meet the five other guys in the Money in the Bank match, all perched on ladders and holding microphones. Kevin says all six guys (except Sami) are big stars. Jericho says he's the biggest star but Owens disagrees. Ambrose tries to cut him off but Owens says he has more to say! Owens says he's gonna be the next champ and face all comers, such as the Nation of Domination and Waylon Mercy. Sami says he's not gonna make a joke, he'll defend the belt against anyone in the locker room. Ambrose says he'll fight a polar bear, mole people, or aliens. Del Rio calls them gringos and Owens goes "ooh, Spanish." Del Rio says Sami will never be champion in the WWE and is just a dog covered in fleas and compared to Del Rio, he's just a paperboy. Mild "Si" chant. Cesaro starts to talk and Jericho immediately cuts him off by saying "shut your dumb mouth." Jericho claims he won the sixth money in the bank match at the Big Apple, Appleton. Everyone gets off the ladders as Jericho gives them the Gift of Jericho. Ambrose climbs up and knocks him down and everyone starts brawling. Cesaro takes his pants off and Teddy Long's music hits. Teddy comes out and says if he was booking matches as the new Smackdown GM, he would book a disqualification match, a fatal four way match, a triple threat match, a six man iron man challenge match, and players, there must be a winner. Stephanie comes out to leech his heat. Stephanie says he isn't going to decide who the GM of Smackdown is tonight. Teddy asks for Shane but he's on vacation. Stephanie tells him to "get to stepping" and tells the production crew not to play his music. She books the six men in the ring in three singles matches, Ambrose vs Owens, Sami vs Del Rio, and Cesaro vs Jericho. I feel like we definitely had these same three matches a couple weeks ago. Stephanie then says to hit Teddy's music and she walks out. I think this was a communication breakdown where they wanted Teddy Long to come in and book the six money in the bank participants in a six man tag but they already had them booked in three singles matches. It was bad though! Waste of Teddy Long. He didn't even say "you'll go one on one with the Undertaker, player."
Jericho vs Cesaro is our first match of the night. This match is really good. In particular, a sequence where Cesaro reverses the walls into the swing into a sharpshooter was great and also the finish! Jericho tapped out.
Byron pays his respects to the greatest, Muhammad Ali, and then they play a video package for Seth vs Roman.
Lana out to introduce Rusev. Rusev is cool. He's wrestling the hometown all-American American Jack Swagger. Titus O'Neil on commentary. Jack gets a great reception. Titus isn't being as funny as usual on commentary. Maybe he needs Darren Young, let's put them back together. Rusev wins via countout. Rusev brawls with Titus but Swagger gets his back and the two of them chase Rusev out of the ring. Titus does the "We the people!" chant.
The 9 o'clock segment is none other than the face that runs the place, John Cena himself! He says last week, the showdown with Styles created a once in a generation event: a crowd that wasn't chanting "Let's go Cena/Cena Sucks" but a crowd that chanted "Let's go Cena/AJ Styles." Cena is upset that AJ "took the easy way out" by siding with the Club instead of wrestling Cena as a babyface, like a man. Cena calls Styles out to explain himself and Styles obliges, flanked by the Club of course. The Cena/Styles chant starts back up but its way weaker than last week. Cena says "They already want it, why did you have to involve your little flunkies in the Bullet Club?" He says "bullet" and AJ makes a face. AJ says his plan from the beginning was to sucker punch Cena. He then cuts a CM Punk promo about how Cena is a good company guy but not a good wrestler. Cena points out that he's cutting a CM Punk promo and says that it's as outdated as his jorts. Cena says Styles is just cranky that he couldn't capitalize on his opportunities against Roman. He says that Styles is a bust, he's "friggin' desperate." "You couldn't get past Roman Reigns now you're picking a fight with John Cena? You do not know who you're dealing with." Cena is amazing. Styles says that he could sell out whatever building he wrestled in, no matter what company he was with but Cena is the real desperate one because he's stuck in the WWE. Cena asks why is it Cena vs the Club now. Styles says its because after he beats Cena clean in that ring, Cena will try to politically "bury" him backstage like he did everyone else who beat him. He needs an insurance policy to protect himself from Cena. The Club surround the ring but Cena won't back down. The Club go to hop in the ring but the New Day come down and chase them off to the tune of ten thousand people chanting "New Day Rocks."
A Vaudevillians vs Enzo and Cass rematch is next. E&C do their thing. Enzo quotes a Muhammad Ali promo. He then cuts his own promo entirely in rhyme. He says his jaw is so strong he can blow a bubble with a Now & Later. Not as good as last week's amazing cheese promo but I'll take it. Instinctively, I'd say this match should probably be on pay per view but nobody will ever pay money to see the Vaudevillians no matter how it's built so never mind. JBL says Ali/Inoki was "the first MMA bout" and tries to imply Simon Gotch is related to Karl Gotch. Enzo bumps to the floor and Cass goes nuts and demolishes the Vaudevillians. He gets DQed for kicking too much ass so I guess this is going to the pay per view. Not a good way to do this.
Backstage, Young Boy Tom asks Sami Zayn if he considers himself the underdog against Del Rio. What a silly question Tom! Del Rio appears. Del Rio says winning is for men like him, not people like Sami. He says perro like twelve times and tries to punk Sami before leaving.
Elsewhere backstage Teddy and Stephanie are hanging out. Teddy says they should book a fatal four way tag team match for the titles. Stephanie asks Teddy how he got backstage. Teddy pulls out a single dollar bill. Then he leaves. She then books the match Teddy suggested, Enzo & Cass vs the Vaudevillians vs Gallows and Gun vs the New Day. But the Club are the number one contenders? They should be pissed.
Sami is already in the ring, getting the jabroni entrance for his match against Del Rio. Del Rio wins with his bad, contrived finisher.
Backstage, Owens and Ambrose talk in the hallway. Owens says he's going to dismember Ambrose because Ambrose is more off the deep end than usual and needs help. Ambrose says Owens needs help, "bro." Ambrose walks off and Owens mutters "I'm not your bro." Then they play a very long Roman Reigns video package.
The 10 o'clock segment is Owens vs Ambrose. I've entirely checked out of this show despite the good Cena promo and the good opening match. Owens beats Ambrose up for like fifteen minutes, then Ambrose hits him with the dirty deeds and pins him clean. Weird.
A Make Darren Young Great Again vignette plays. Bob doesn't want Darren Young to run so he takes his car keys and tells him to walk briskly. These vignettes are kind of funny but are clearly going nowhere.
Charlotte and Dana are in the ring. The WWE did a good job of making me dread women's segments again only a couple months after the "Diva's Revolution." Charlotte apologizes for yelling at her dad. This is the worst. She explains that she meant Ric was dead to her professionally, not personally. What. Nattie's music hits and she comes out with Becky. Dana, Charlotte, Becky, and Natalya have a very clumsy, ugly-looking brawl. This is bad. Dana lays out Becky with a Samoan driver and Charlotte chokes Natalya out with a headlock.
A Shining Stars vignette plays but they're in front of a bad green screen instead of actually in Puerto Rico and its markedly worse than usual.
Tyler Breeze with Fandango vs somebody. They play a pretape with Breezango, featuring Breeze shaving Fandango's back. Fandango says shaving your body makes you "aero-gigantic." He's wrestling R-Truth. Truth added a new verse to his Golden Truth song. "We're two bad sons of guns/We like to rap, dance, and have some fun." The match immediately breaks down and the ref throws it out. All four men brawl and eventually Breezango escape up the ramp. Teddy Long shows up and tries to restart the match as a tag team match but security shows up to escort him out. What is wrong with the WWE.
Backstage, Teddy is flanked by security when Stephanie shows up. Stephanie berates him for some reason. She calls him a bunch of names. This sucks, why do this. She reveals that she still doesn't like Shane. Monday Night Raw is a waste of time. She tells Teddy to get "the hell" out of her building forever. When the brand split comes, I figured I would watch both shows and just liveblog whichever I liked more but now if there are McMahons on either show, I might just be done with this.
They play a Muhammad Ali video package that its considerably worse than the one the UFC played on Saturday despite Keith David. Michael Cole says Muhammad Ali and Gorilla Monsoon are sports-entertaining in heaven right now.
The Club vs the New Day six man tag is the main event. The New Day call the Club the Mickey Mouse Club. Woods starts to sing the song but E and Kofi stop him because of copyright. The Club doesn't matter according to the New Day. They brawl and AJ immediately clashes Woods on the floor, taking him out of the match. The bell hasn't rung yet and the ref makes it a 2 vs 3 match I guess. The Club win after a fun match where the odds eventually got stacked too high against the outnumbered New Day. The Club keep beating down Big E and Kofi after the match ends until Cena makes the save. Cena and the New Day stand tall after Cena and Big E hit their finishers on Gallows and Gun.
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