WWE Week in Review: Royal Rumble fallout, Samoa Joe debuts

WWE Monday Night RAW

We got an interesting start to the post-Rumble edition of RAW as Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho opened the show. Okay, I suppose it’s not interesting to start the show with a promo but Braun Strowman getting involved was a nice little twist and he had actually some video footage with him to prove that Owens promised him a title shot — a match that we’ll get later on. I think this added a little more depth to Strowman, showing that he’s not just a big, dumb brute. Owens and Jericho were fantastic as always. Good opener.

We’re not done with Jericho quite yet as he’s set to face Sami Zayn in a non-title bout, a match that was very good. But with those two veterans in there, that was to be expected. It looks as if some of the heat is off of Zayn –at least for the moment– and he picked up a clean win here and it’s likely he’ll be in line for a United States Championship shot at Fastlane. I think all of this will be great. I’ve got no problem seeing these two battle again and there’s always going to be something between Owens and Zayn. KO will get involved at some point and that’s never a bad thing. Good for all parties involved.

I’ve been bagging a bit on Bayley lately but she was a little better in her promo time this week with Cesaro and Sheamus. But then she just looked inferior once again as Charlotte and The Club (are we still calling them that?) showed up and won the war of words, especially Gallows’ “NERDS” line. Entertaining enough.

Tony Nese and Mustafa Ali are up next and they just have to start giving these cruiserweights more time if they want to get the WWE Universe into it all. This match didn’t even go four minutes but they made the most of what they got. Nese got the win and his promo with Austin Aries afterwards was pretty solid. I think Aries is going to drop the mic at some point soon and get involved with these guys.

The Seth Rollins-Stephanie McMahon segment that was announced at the Royal Rumble is up next. Now, I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a huge fan of Stephanie and she killed it once again. But Rollins was able to stay with her and this whole thing is getting very personal as The Architect took some shots at her and even threatened to show up at her house just to get his hands on Triple H. I mean, he brought their kids into this whole thing. Wow. You thought Trips might show up here but we’re obviously setting up for something later. Great promo work from both Seth and Steph here.

It’s time for the six-person tag match between Bayley, Cesaro and Sheamus vs. Anderson, Gallows and Charlotte and I think this was a decent way to keep a couple of feuds going simultaneously. It’s always tough to fit everything in following a big pay-per-view like the Rumble, especially when it was a very RAW-heavy event. So they knocked out two birds with one stone here and for the second time in the night, a champion got pinned as Bayley got the win for her team. It wasn’t a terribly long match and we missed a lot of it with the commercial break but what we saw was decent enough.

Neville’s coronation as King of the Cruiserweights was a nice little segment that kept the feud between he and Rich Swann going and made both guys look great. Swann was being very diplomatic about the fact that he lost at the Rumble but Neville was having none of it and continued his great heel work as he demanded that his rival bow to him, which led to the obligatory brawl. A rematch is coming soon.

Uh oh, Bayley’s back doing more things backstage as she joins Sasha Banks, who’s getting ready for a rematch with Nia Jax. She tries to talk her friend out of going through with another match until she’s fully healed but Banks teases the heel turn that we all know is coming as she tells Bayley that she’s not satisfied with coming up short unlike some people. The turn should be fun to watch.

Following a backstage promo in which Jericho claims Owens didn’t have his back earlier in the night in his match with Sami Zayn, Owens says he really needs Y2J out there with him tonight against Braun Strowman. The tension between these two has returned and the inevitable split is going to be so great when it finally happens.

As for the match itself, it was about what I expected it to be. Jericho was taken out by Braun before the match even got going (with Owens doing nothing to stop it) and dominates Owens early on but the champ got his fair share of offense in as well before we got the expected run-in from Roman Reigns, who hit the Superman punch on Strowman a couple of times before spearing him off the steps. This was the natural progression of this budding feud so it really wasn’t a big shock. Pretty well executed.

It’s promo time again as Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar hit the ring to address the Goldberg situation and I liked the direction he went here. There was even a Hulk Hogan reference in here as he brought up how he had Andre the Giant’s number just like Brock Lesnar had The Undertaker’s, John Cena’s and Kurt Angle’s. Kids played into the mix again as he brought up the humiliation of Brock Lesnar’s Survivor Series and Royal Rumble outings and challenges Goldberg to one last fight — at WrestleMania. Now, I’ve been completely against this whole Lesnar and Goldberg thing from the start and I’m still doubting that they can be the real main event of WrestleMania but this was the right way to get it going if that’s what we’re going to get.

The Nia Jax squash train kept rolling over Sasha Banks with a really awful match that went about two minutes. I know what they’re trying to do here but it’s just not coming off very well, is it? Bayley came out to make the save and all but this whole segment looked rushed to me. I’m sure it’ll pick up as we move along.

And now the necessary filler match before we get to the final segment as Enzo and Cass took on Jinder Mahal and Rusev — I’m sorry, Handsome Rusev. At least the Tornado Tag stipulation make this look halfway interesting but I’m just not invested in this. Rusev is being wasted right now and Cass just needs to get away from Enzo, who would be best suited in the cruiserweight division right now. Maybe a win from Big Cass at the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which is likely how he’ll be used at WrestleMania, will be the start of his singles push.

Oh joy. Goldberg will be on RAW next week to answer Lesnar’s challenge. Moving on.

How freaking amazing was this final segment? Triple H is out and cuts a very good promo about how he’s trying so hard not to be “that guy” anymore and is merely trying to be a creator. He actually said “create” a lot but we’ll let that go since it worked so well. He even put Seth Rollins over a little bit by saying that he’s trying to create the next Seth Rollins. But it’s time to stop and he takes off the jacket and it looks as if we’re finally going to get some physicality between these two that’s been building for months. Rollins makes his way down to the ring and just when you think that the payoff is coming …. BAM! SAMOA FREAKING JOE!!!

There were so many people that were upset when Joe wasn’t number 30 at the Royal Rumble but this more than made up for it, don’t you think? This was booking at its best and was way more unexpected than him showing up the night before. He proceeded to beat Rollins down and Corey Graves was absolute money in putting him over. What made it even better is that Triple H didn’t even stick around to watch all of it. He’s got a hired gun now to do his dirty work and just adds more and more depth to this program. The only problem here is that Rollins may have seriously gotten injured during the attack and may have to miss some time if some reports are to be believed. We’ll just have to wait and see how this thing plays out and if it’s all a work or not. But this was gold and a great start on the road to WrestleMania.

Overall, I thought this week’s episode was pretty solid. The build towards WrestleMania has begun and they got things rolling with some great segments this week and some good matches in there as well.