WWE RAW Recap, July 10: Who will face Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam?

Now that we can all stop saying “Balls,” we learned who the “Greatest Man in WWE” is, while Kurt Angle made a huge No. 1 contender match for next week.

American Bad Cass

“How you doin’?” Big Cass asked the crowd, one night after the public humiliation of his ex-partner, Enzo Amore. Unless you’re a sucker for a good David vs. Goliath story, you knew Cass was going to win their match at Great Balls of Fire. The 7-footer made it clear he was no longer selling tickets to board the rocket ship that he will be sending to the top of the WWE, all the way to the Universal Championship.

The old saying goes, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” If Cass’ first step toward the top was little, his second will have to be giant. Nobody, especially Big Show, has forgotten that he was one of the suspects who people thought hurt Enzo. We obviously know that wasn’t the case, but if we’ve learned anything since 1995, it’s that Big Show doesn’t let bygones be bygones so easily.

Big Cass still has to prove himself before getting a chance at the Beast’s title — not to mention Braun Strowman, Samoa Joe, and Roman Reigns all nipping at the champ’s heels — so a big win against Big Show would do a lot for his stock. It’s too early to predict whether this match will be on the SummerSlam card, but once Cass does chop down the only other 7-foot threat he faces, it shouldn’t be long before he is in the contender conversation.

The Mizzies

Move over, Oscar and Tony,  there’s a new award show in town, and it was… not that awesome, actually. The Mizzies may have even out-fixed the Academy Awards, as each winner went to someone from the Miztourage, including The Miz himself, who won the Greatest Man in WWE Award. I truly hoped we wouldn’t hear Dean Ambrose’s name; there’s no way we could get another feud with these two right? RIGHT!? Wrong. Crap.

After Ambrose interrupted the Mizzies, it wasn’t long before Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel used numbers to their advantage. While he didn’t exactly even the odds, Seth Rollins’ interference helped Ambrose get out alive. Rollins’ name was brought up by Miz, and it made him just as upset as when Bray Wyatt did the same last month. Backstage, Ambrose approached Rollins, denouncing any friendship it may seem they have. Ambrose doesn’t trust Rollins, and probably never will, so Rollins would have to look forward to his rematch against Bray Wyatt later in the night with nobody at his back.

In the main event, we got to watch an old-fashioned fight between Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt, the second match between the two in as many days. Both matches had the same result, with Wyatt picking up the win using one of Rollins’ biggest weakness (and most likely every other man’s weakness), his eye. The house lights went off with Wyatt raising his arms, and by the time they came back on, the Miztourage were walking toward Rollins’ remains. The three men pounced on Rollins, who, believe it or not, does have a friend in Dean Ambrose. Or, at least a common enemy. Rollins’ injection into the Miz/Ambrose feud is an interesting monkey wrench — I don’t see it actually doing anything beneficial for Rollins, but perhaps getting the taste of his half-assed feud with Bray Wyatt out of our mouths is a win in itself.

Who is Next?

At Great Balls of Fire, things looked bleaker than they had in a long time for Brock Lesnar. (Okay, maybe not worse than he looked losing to Goldberg at Survivor Series, but still really bad.) Samoa Joe had won 98 percent of that match, but it was Lesnar who won the 2 percent that mattered most. Our RAW General Manager, Kurt Angle, came out to introduce the Universal Champion and his advocate, which Roman Reigns took as an open invitation to come out and challenge the Beast.

Next: 30 pro wrestling must-follows on Twitter

Even though Reigns lost his Ambulance Match to Braun Strowman at GBOF, it was his near-decapitation of Strowman in the back of the ambulance that took Strowman temporarily out of the competition, and vaulted Reigns to the top of the mountain. This brought Samoa Joe to the ring to get a better understanding of what Roman was thinking. (Translation: “Not so fast, kid,”)

Joe claimed he beat the hell out of Lesnar, and if you have working eyes, you would not disagree. With Strowman out of the picture, at least for the immediate future, Lesnar’s next opponent comes down to just two guys. American Hero Kurt Angle made the match for next week: Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe, winner gets Brock at SummerSlam. It’s going to be sad when Reigns beats Joe, not because it’s Roman Friggin’ Reigns, but because it’ll mean Joe would have lost two matches in a row. What would Triple H have to say about that?

Highlight Reel

• I know it was never officially announced, but I was truly hoping we would have seen Finn Balor vs. Elias Samson on the GBOF card. As sad as I was it wasn’t on the GBOF card, I was just as happy that we got to watch them battle on RAW. It was actually a pretty fun match, but it was Balor who overcame an apparent shoulder injury, and hit the Coup de Grace to pick up the pinfall victory. Balor will need a legitimate opponent eventually, but for now, I am very happy just to see Elias Samson on my television.
• Not many tag teams have had a worse 24 hours than the Hardy Boyz had; starting Sunday night, they barely lost to the RAW Tag Team Champions Sheamus & Cesaro in a 30-minute Iron Man match, and on RAW, they lost an impromptu match to the Club. Don’t worry, there was more: after the Club made their statement to the rest of the Tag Team Division, the Revival decided to make their big comeback, and stomped whatever was left of the Hardys. If the Revival are going to be feuding with the Hardy Boyz, I think a safe prediction would be that Revival will be the ones who are put over. Perhaps the Hardy Boyz nostalgia act really does have a shorter shelf life than expected.
• Alexa Bliss, coming off the biggest loss of her RAW career (a loss so big she kept the title), teamed with her only ally these days, Nia Jax, to take on Bayleyand Sasha Banks. Bayley pinned the RAW Women’s Champion, which was a much needed win for the huggable one. I can’t help but feel that Nia Jax and Sasha Banks both lost all momentum they built last week after the Gauntlet match. There are still some good match combinations we haven’t seen yet from these four women, so I’ll be happy no matter who Alexa Bliss gets challenged by as we head to SummerSlam. (I’d be happiest if it were Nia Jax. Wouldn’t we all?)
• The sequel to Goldust’s movie, The Shattered Truth, premiered on RAW, and just as its creator prophesized, it was better than the original; this time, we got a full match out of it. Goldust picked up the win over R-Truth, proving that we are indeed in the midst of the Golden Age. Despite the clean win by Goldust, I’d like to this feud to stay alive until Summerslam. and given the lack of demand by other superstars to wrestle either of these guys, the difficulty creating this rematch will be more bronze than gold.
• After Kurt Angle created next week’s match between Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe, he was joined backstage by Corey Graves, who received the same (possibly incriminating) text message as Angle. The RAW GM’s voice shook with guilt over whatever these texts contained, even talking about his career possibly ending because of it. As RAW was going off the air, Angle was shown on his phone, saying that they will deal with whatever happens next week, telling the person on the other line that he loves them. Color me red, white, blue, and intrigued.
• Akira Tozawa, fresh off a Cruiserweight Championship loss at GBOF, hit Neville with a Diving Senton to grab the win for he and teammate, Cedric Alexander. (Noam Dar, Neville’s partner for this match, is set to face Alexander on 205 Live in an I Quit match.) Titus O’Neil was in desperate need for a brand boost (especially after his newest client lost the biggest match of his career the night before, while his oldest client was nearly murdered by Braun Strowman in last week’s main event), and he finally got one. Tozawa should get a rematch for Neville’s title; if it’s at SummerSlam, let’s hope these guys can go to work AFTER the preshow.