WWE Monday Night RAW will be LIVE from Des Moines, Iowa!

What’s going on everybody? I hope you all had an excellent Labor Day weekend!

Now tonight’s WWE RAW will be coming to us LIVE from Des Moines, Iowa and will continue to build up to WWE Night of Champions which will be on Pay Per View on Sunday, September 15th.

WWE SummerSlam delivered one of the biggest shocks of the entire year, if not the last couple of years. For a number of weeks after John Cena named Daniel Bryan the #1 contender for the WWE Championship, Triple H has backed up the bearded ring technician whenever Vince McMahon picked on him.

I’ve been watching WWE my whole life and I didn’t see this turn come, I never even entertained the thought that Triple H and Randy Orton had some sort of Vince McMahon and The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin business deal in the works. But I guess it’s a good thing the creative team for this company didn’t dish out a storyline that was predictable.

Ever since SummerSlam, Triple H and his wife Stephanie, Vince McMahon and the WWE Champion Randy Orton have been making Daniel Bryan’s life somewhat of a living “hell”. Excuse my language but I wasn’t sure how else to explain it.

Right now they are putting Daniel Bryan across as the underdog once again. Even though he defeated possibly the greatest WWE SuperStar of the last 10 or so years, he was quickly knocked off the top of the mountain by the guy who signed him to this company. Tonight we should see this storyline continue to build as Night of Champions approaches.

Bryan has suffered attacks from Randy Orton and The Shield on both WWE RAW and Smackdown. This storyline looks as if it will continue until John Cena is available to come back to save us from this Corporation/Evolution 2.0 stable.

Another big storyline for the WWE as of late is this CM Punk and Paul Heyman bit. Which in all honesty is my favorite storyline this year. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, CM Punk and Paul Heyman are geniuses on the mic. Their chemistry together is spot on even when Punk is inside the ring and Heyman is ringside with Punk’s opponent.

Last week’s segment between Punk and Heyman was spectacular and made the show a lot better than it was. Heyman attacking Punk with that kendo stick and shouting how he was like a son to him and how he loved him is exactly what this storyline needed. You could actually feel the story they were telling was turning into something big.

What completely got me was the promo Heyman cut backstage looking as if he just bawled his eyes out after destroying CM Punk with that kendo stick. By the way, did anybody see Punk’s battle scars from that attack? They were pretty brutal.

This CM Punk vs Curtis Axel and Paul Heyman handicap match at WWE Night of Champions should be a top match on the card. Curtis Axel (Mr. Perfect’s son) who is a very talented in ring competitor needed a boost like this. If there was a feud I would have loved to see besides Punk and Lesnar it would be Curtis Axel and Punk himself.

I expect Curtis Axel and Heyman to sound off on what happened last week, which would open up Punk to come out and deliver a brilliant promo of his own followed by an attack.

Moving on, we have Mr. Monday Night Rob Van Dam in a feud with World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio. The feud with Christian was short lived which was sort of expected and I knew Ricardo Rodriguez would eventually come back and announce he was working for somebody else.

We’ve seen guys like Bill ‘Fonzie’ Alfonso and Paul Heyman work the corner of RVD, so it will get some time to get used to seeing Ricardo working his corner. Van Dam has come back strong ever since his return at WWE Money in the Bank a couple months ago and has shown he still has what it takes to put on a show in the squared circle.

This showcases two different sets of in ring abilities. You have Rob Van Dam who is known to use those “educated feet” and acrobatic attacks and Del Rio who has been showing more of a technical style. With Damien Sandow holding the Money in the Bank case for the World Heavyweight Championship and continuing his heel role, this may be the end of the line for Alberto Del Rio as the champion. At least for a little while.

Tonight we should see plenty of action as usual. I will be posting a WWE Monday Night RAW recap sometime after the show, so be sure to come back and check out that article if you miss the show tonight.

Thank you for reading!

WWE Monday Night RAW is LIVE on the USA Network at 8PM Eastern/7 PM Central/5PM Pacific.