WWE Monday Night RAW Preview: Daniel Bryan the NEW WWE Champion

Hello ladies and gentleman! Welcome to FanSided’s preview for tonight’s episode of WWE Monday Night RAW!

RAW will be coming too us LIVE from Cleveland, Ohio following the Night of Champions Pay Per View and man oh man, things could get very interesting tonight.

Now if you happened to have watched the pay per view you would think it would have been either a B- or B+ show depending on what you thought with the matches. Me personally? I would give this Pay Per View an A. Summer Slam was definitely the best pay per view for the 2013 campaign, which got an A+ rating.

Last night”s pay per view is going to open up a couple storylines that will carry over to October 6th’s BattleGround pay per view which is only a couple of weeks away. BattleGround should be the last pay per view before WWE Survivor Series in November.

Now last night’s main event will of course be the main focus for tonight’s RAW, which is no surprise. If you haven’t been watching WWE for that long or don’t remember, Triple H and Chris Jericho were pretty much in the same storyline Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton are currently in. Triple H was the top guy and Chris Jericho was the small guy who would never be at the time “WWF Champion”. But one night on RAW, the young Chris Jericho took on Triple H (both of them were in their prime) and beat him for the championship. Now the referee who I believe was Earl Hebner at the time, gave Jericho a fast count which gave him the victory and made him champion.

Triple H who was currently running things with Stephanie McMahon during the McMahon-Hemlsley, demanded that the referee reverse his decision because of the fast count. After being pressured the call was reversed and Triple H remained WWF Champion. Tonight I think we’re going to see the same thing. Now last night’s referee for the main even was Scott Armstrong. Armstrong is the brother of Triple H’s former DX buddy Road Dogg Jesse James.

I sort of expect Daniel Bryan to be stripped the WWE Championship and matched up against Randy Orton again at BattleGround. Unless they have some match that involves multiple participants who are involved in the champion match for both the World Heavyweight and WWE Championship. It would be awesome if they brought back the WCW War Games idea which involved two rings side by side with a cage surrounding both rings.

Anyways, I got a bit distracted with that idea and how amazing it would be. But that may be bad for business to the C.O.O. Triple H. So besides this issue, let’s talk about some things that will or may happen tonight in Cleveland.

Stephanie McMahon invited the father of both Cody and Dustin Rhodes to the show for some sort of “business” proposition. The announcement was made during WWE Night of Champions, so it will be interesting to see what Stephanie has to propose to the “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. It could involve him being placed in a match which could result in him competing for his sons jobs. Or Stephanie could propose to remove him from the Hall of Fame in return for Cody Rhodes being reinstated. There could be multiple ideas that could into play tonight when Stephanie and Dusty meet, but I expect Cody to be back with the company in the next couple of weeks. I think this was a way to give him time off to enjoy his wedding. I’m sure almost everybody in the company was invited and they all had a great time.

The handicap elimination match between CM Punk and Curtis Axel/Paul Heyman was pretty entertaining. Axel did a great job working with Punk considering the handicap match was his second of the night. Axel defended his championship in an entertaining match up against Kofi Kingston to start off the show and of course Axel retained the title. Punk finally got his hands on Heyman and gave him the beating he was waiting to give him. Right when Punk was ready to “break” Heyman’s face, Ryback slide into the ring behind Punk and speared him through a table in the corner. Ryback pulled Heyman ontop of Punk and assisted him in the victory.

So now it looks like Heyman has himself a new Paul Heyman guy. It makes sense that it’s Ryback knowing Brock Lesnar has only a certain amount of appearances on his contract. So BattleGround should involve a match up between Punk and Ryback which should involve some sort of extreme rules if you would, given the name BattleGround. I don’t expect this match up that involves standard rules, some sort of stipulation will be added.

I expect Heyman and Ryback to make their way to the ring, celebrate the victory and CM Punk to come out and issue a counter promo to whatever they decide to say tonight. This could open up a Curtis Axel vs CM Punk match up for tonight.

Other possible match up’s we should see is a rematch between The PrimeTime Players and the Tag Team Champions The Shield. Other Superstars who should be involved in tonight’s show should be The Miz, Fandango, The PrimeTime Players, Dolph Ziggler, A.J. Lee and hopefully The Wyatt Family.

Tonight’s episode will begin the countdown to October 6th and BattleGround.

Thank you for reading!