WWE Monday Night Raw recap: Read the fine print

On this week’s Monday Night Raw, Roman Reigns finds out he has a target on his back while the Women’s Tag Team Championships change hands.

This week’s Monday Night Raw served to tie up some of the last loose ends ahead of SummerSlam on Sunday. We also saw a pair of title changes, an appearance by Brock Lesnar and learned that Dolph Ziggler doesn’t read the fine print when he signs contracts. Here’s all you need to know about the August 5 edition of Raw.

Roman Reigns needs a friend

Since the dissolution of The Shield, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins have both being doing their own things. That hasn’t been great for either man, but Reigns in particular has had some trouble over the past two weeks as it appears someone has a lust for his blood.

On SmackDown Live last week, the show closed with Reigns being felled by toppling backstage lighting equipment. While Reigns and WWE both believed it was “forklift error” and thus an accident, Raw this week proved it was anything but.

First, we were treated to Samoa Joe standing atop the announce table to declare he had nothing to do with last week’s attack on Reigns and demanding Reigns face him and issue an apology. Reigns, however, isn’t in the arena at that time, so it will have to wait.

Later on, Joe has lost his patience and posts up in the ring, promising to hijack Raw until Reigns apologizes. Reigns, however, is just arriving at the arena, per a production assistant. That leads to Joe heading to the parking lot for an immediate confrontation. He tries, but a speeding sliver car crashes into Reigns’ vehicle and, ostensibly, Reigns himself.

Joe then reveals there’s more than just monstrous rage coursing through his veins — he is also capable of compassion, calling for medical attention for Reigns and telling him to stay down and wait for it. Triple H also shows up to attend to Reigns. Will an unlikely alliance form between Joe and Reigns (and maybe Trips as well), based on a love of fighting and a disdain for what is now, clearly, attempted murder?

OBGY-not?

The saga of the 24/7 Championship continues all the way to Maria Kanellis’ OBGYN appointment, which was totally at an actual, real-life doctors office in Pittsburgh and definitely not some cordoned, curtained off area backstage in the arena. This is all a set-up for Mike to get the title back, though, pinning his wife on the exam table via emphatic hug in support of their unborn child (and the doctor also being a referee).

This sets up the obvious — R-Truth is in the “waiting room” of said office, dressed as a pregnant woman and he ultimately pins Mike, winning back the 24/7 Championship for the 11th time. Looks like we’ll be getting back to the main story with this title, Truth versus Drake Maverick (who wasn’t around this week).

Welp!

After winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships at WrestleMania 35, The IIconics have barely defended them, especially not against anyone of note. Title matches were announced and then scrapped throughout their reign, including the week previous on SmackDown Live.

This week on Raw, WWE decided to run the fatal four-way elimination tag team match for said titles that was initially pegged for SummerSlam. The IIconics defended against Fire and Desire (Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville), the Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) and Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss. Peyton Royce and Billie Kay’s reign came to an end, with the defending champs the first team eliminated. So much for that.

Ultimately, the match — which was very good, by the way — came down to Asuka and Sane and Cross and Bliss. Asuka and Cross, in particular, was an intriguing matchup that would be fun to see again. Bliss and Cross became the new champions after Bliss hit Twisted Bliss on Sane for the win.

While the Pittsburgh crowd was dead for most of the night, it wasn’t until the end of this match that they even seemed to acknowledge that it was happening. Perhaps if the WWE had given us a reason to care about the Women’s Tag Team Championships, the people holding them and the people vying for them, this could have received the fan response it deserved.

But it’s been clear since WrestleMania (and the plans for Nikki and Brie Bella to return being scrapped) that these titles aren’t priorities in the company. At least Bliss and Cross are featured frequently on Raw and SmackDown, so maybe we’ll see the beautiful belts more often, even if there are still few-to-no defenses of them.

Matches to nowhere

Most of the in-ring action on Raw this week mainly served to build up their participants’ respective matches at SummerSlam. The opening match featured the can-they-coexist pairing of Charlotte Flair and Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch against Lynch’s SummerSlam challenger, Natalya, teaming with Flair’s challenger, Trish Stratus.

Stratus didn’t do anything in this match. Instead it was all Natalya, first versus Flair and then versus Lynch. Upon Lynch tagging in, Flair hit her with a cheap shot and bailed. Natalya then locked in the Sharpshooter; Lynch made it to the ropes, but Natalya wouldn’t release the submission and thus the referee disqualified her. Stratus then physically pried Natalya off of Lynch. Lynch and Natalya, of course, will have a submission match at SummerSlam.

SmackDown Tag Champs The New Day (Big E and Xavier Woods, sans Kofi Kingston) took on The Club (Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, and Raw Tag Champs). But because the latter were accompanied by AJ Styles, Ricochet (Styles’ SummerSlam challenger for his United States Championship) arrives to even the odds. This tag match becomes a six-man after a commercial break, and the heel trio come up victorious.

Drew McIntyre versus Cedric Alexander (with Pittsburgh native Kurt Angle as special guest referee) never officially got started, with McIntyre and Alexander fighting outside of the ring before the bell. It is then interrupted by Bray Wyatt’s Fiend, who attacks Angle in the ring with the Mandible Claw. It’s presumed that McIntyre-Alexander will take place for realsies at SummerSlam.

Also, The Viking Raiders squashed local talent (surprise!) and Rey Mysterio and Andrade met in a stellar match born from Andrade sort-of unmasking Mysterio in the previous week’s gauntlet match. Andrade, as we know, is one of the best performers in WWE today and Mysterio is aging backwards, doing some of the most impressive work of his career.

If they had just built this story a little longer, the two could have had this match at SummerSlam instead and probably would have received a better reception from the crowd. Of all the in-ring work this week on Raw, this is the match to watch.

Seth the brave, Seth the dumb

Brock Lesnar has been more visible since winning the Universal Championship ahead of SummerSlam, and he arrived on Raw, with advocate Paul Heyman, in order for Heyman to do the requisite hyping of Lesnar’s match against Seth Rollins on Sunday. Confident, prideful dummy that he is, Rollins makes his way to the ring, steel chair in hand, upon mere mention of his name.

Now, Rollins has been spending his time being brutalized by Lesnar any time the two come in contact, so he slowly limps to the ring, his ribs taped and perhaps his hip also injured. This proved to be a fool’s errand; he just gets beaten within an inch of his life by Lesnar, again.

Rollins, though, cuts a dramatic promo afterward where he wonders if the pursuit of something he loves so much, the Universal Championship (and saving WWE from Lesnar) is worth it given how much punishment it has brought him. But, it is — he, the Beastslayer who is more David than Goliath, says this is his identity, it is all he has. He guarantees he will defeat Lesnar at SummerSlam.

Dolph gets swerved

Our “main event” on Raw this week is an edition of MizTV set up for The Miz (accompanied by Shawn Michaels) and Dolph Ziggler to sign the contract for their SummerSlam match. After a bit of back-and-forth featuring Ziggler’s penchant for over-the-top oratory, Ziggler quickly and dramatically signs the contract. He didn’t read it; that’s key.

The Miz tells Ziggler that the two will meet — next week on Raw. Ziggler realizes that he’s agreed to a different match at SummerSlam and assumes Michaels is his opponent. But nope, Michaels says it’s not him. Oh, it’s Goldberg, back to redeem himself from his terrible performance against The Undertaker at That Show. 

Goldberg comes to the ring and the Pittsburgh crowd remains rather lukewarm for his arrival. He signs the contract, tells Ziggler (guess what) that he’s “next.” And, with a Sweet Chin Music from Michaels to Ziggler, Raw ends.

Go-home shows ahead of pay-per-views are typically done in service of said pay-per-view and therefore don’t advance many new storylines. That’s what we got this week, but the Goldberg swerve, the Reigns mystery attacker, the women’s tag belts changing hands and, especially, Andrade versus Mysterio made the night not a complete waste.

Let us know what you thought about Raw this week in the comments below. Who do you think has it in for Reigns? Will he and Samoa Joe create an uneasy alliance?