WWE Monday Night Raw recap: A good night of professional wrestling

Monday Night Raw this week was all about the in-ring action, with long matches, a title change and an appearance by The Fiend.

There was a different feel to WWE Monday Night Raw this week, maybe due to the fact that Vince McMahon reportedly wasn’t in attendance and the show was put together by Triple H, Paul Heyman and Kevin Dunn. Perhaps it was only a coincidence; either way, everything that happened had a purpose, the matches were good (and lengthy and numerous) and we even were treated to a few surprises.

So let’s take a look at the happenings on Raw for August 19.

The same, but different

The show opens with Roman Reigns, thus leading into the same promo package we’ve been barraged with featuring all of the mystery attacks on Reigns and their Daniel Bryan-Rowan-Buddy Murphy fallout. But that was just to remind us of Reign’s ongoing storyline (which seems confined to SmackDown this week) before getting down to the next matter of business: Dolph Ziggler.

The Ziggler thing is also old news — he’s whining and feeling entitled and “it should have been me!”-ing about the place, and essentially cuts the promo version of this tweet:

Now, of course, Ziggler has brought all of those things upon himself by insulting the people who then gave him beatings. And the assumption is that the same will befall him with Reigns. While it would have been easy to just write this so that Ziggler immediately takes five Superman punches and three spears and be left lying limply in the ring, WWE decided to do it a little differently this time.

Yes, Reigns wins via spear, but it took 15-20 minutes worth of match to get there, with Ziggler hitting a few Zig Zags, Ziggler kicking out of the Superman punch and enough damage taken by Reigns that now Ziggler looks credible as a pro wrestler and not just a human crash test dummy. And this is what sets the tone for the rest of the night.

Hail to The Fiend

With Corey Graves not around this week, the third commentary spot fell to Jerry “The King” Lawler, who was on hand also to host a King’s Court with guest Sasha Banks. However, we were spared three hours of Lawler (and what probably would have been an awkward Court segment) thanks to Bray Wyatt’s Fiend.

Lawler called the opening match, then headed to the ring for his one-on-one with Banks. Before that could get underway, though, the lights in the arena started flickering and going out, a surefire sign that The Fiend was afoot. Lawler, who has seen fellow Hall of Famers like Mick Foley and Kurt Angle get attacked, tried to run out of the ring and to the back, but was sneak-attacked by Wyatt/The Fiend, hit with a mandible claw and thus taken out for the night.

Additionally, this brilliant choice by The Fiend led us to Vic Joseph, 205 Live commentator, joining Renee Young and Michael Cole and knocking it out of the park. Graves is Graves, and this week it was nice to not have so much yelling and a lot more conversation centered around the wrestlers and the action that was actually taking place. Kudos to Joseph, and for WWE giving him the opportunity on Raw and for also understanding that having Lawler at the table for three hours would have been absolutely tedious.

King of the Ring

Raw featured two matches in the King of the Ring tournament, one better than the other. First was Cesaro (now certified a babyface thanks to the new track suit) versus Samoa Joe. Predictably, this was a good match that was given a decent amount of time and featured Cesaro trying and sort of succeeding in swinging Joe. Samoa Joe ultimately got the win via Coquina Clutch.

The second was Cedric Alexander versus Sami Zayn, in what could have also been a good match were it given a decent amount of time. Unfortunately, we all know that Zayn is on a months-long losing streak and that his losses don’t just come frequently, they come quickly. As such, Alexander picks up the win via Lumbar Check in short order. Afterward, Zayn had a freakout during the commercial break and on Twitter has vowed it’s “time for a change.”

WWE didn’t forget about the other four Raw King of the Ring entrants, either, taking a page out of the NJPW G1 Climax structure and pitting Ricochet and The Miz against Drew McIntyre and Baron Corbin. Ricochet pinning Corbin was a nice touch, too, one that doesn’t provide any spoilers for next week, as Corbin will be facing Miz and Ricochet, McIntyre.

Also, Corbin went from wrestling in his waiter gear, to removing the shirt and ultimately finishing the match in a black tank top. I hope this was a cue to the viewers that Corbin will no longer look like he’s about to ask us if we’d like to start with something to drink.

Storytelling

Given the way their SummerSlam match ended, we knew the feud between Kofi Kingston and Randy Orton was far from over, and based on what happened on SmackDown last week, we also knew that Orton had formed an alliance with The Revival to take down the entire New Day and their control of both the WWE Championship and SmackDown tag titles. The saga continued on Monday.

The New Day (Xavier Woods and Big E) were set to face The Revival, and things fell apart fairly quickly after Orton arrived and successfully RKO’d Big E out of nowhere, as is his wont. This brought Kingston to the ring, who valiantly fought off all three before being hit with an RKO of his own.

Another RKO took out Woods and then The Revival attempted to shatter his leg — while Kingston was forced to watch — which ultimately led Woods being taken to a “local medical facility.” This is key, because as pointed out on Twitter, The Revival broke Kingston’s leg with the same move when they were called up from NXT.

From the history between Kingston and Orton that spans a decade, to the past encounters between New Day and The Revival, this entire story has interwoven everything that has gone down between these six men over the years. As we know, this is not typically WWE’s strong storytelling suit. Now that they are employing it, at least here, it really highlights how effective actually remembering the characters’ histories can be to carrying a feud.

Becky Lynch’s great promo

No, that’s it. Becky Lynch cut a fantastic promo on Sasha Banks (and the women’s division as a whole) and she nailed it. There’s really nothing more to be said. Lynch said it all.

It’s a blue day, yes it is

Related to the above, we finally get a sit-down interview (via closed circuit from backstage, apparently) with Banks, conducted by Adam Cole. It mostly centers around Banks’ hair color change from in the pink-purple-magenta family to blue and doesn’t provide us any answers as to her motivations for attacking Natalya and Lynch. Which is a typical thing when heels are asked why they would attack someone; here, Banks just says, “you’re welcome.”

Later in the night, Natalya updates us on her injured elbow and Banks attacks again, this time telling Natalya to “go to Hell,” and that she’ll see her deceased father when she gets there. Ouch.

As an aside: WWE really likes to use Jim Neidhart’s death in Natalya’s storylines. Last year, just after he passed, Ruby Riott and the Riott Squad smashed a pair of Neidhart’s sunglasses as part of their feud with Nattie, and now it’s been Banks, two weeks in a row, to either interrupt Natalya’s grieving on the one-year anniversary of his death, or evoking him while beating her up.

This week in the women’s division

One glaring problem with this week’s Raw was the lack of actual matches involving the women’s division. While Lynch’s promo was great, and we got more of the new-look Banks (in both hair and action), the only in-ring work among the women was the Women’s Tag Team Champions, Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross facing Fire and Desire (Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville).

The match itself was also brief, with Rose and Deville picking up the win and thus also earning themselves a title shot at Clash of Champions. The upside, we suppose, is that we’re seeing the women’s tag titles on television regularly now. But this match, and the Lynch/Banks segments, also highlight how little overall development there is in the division. We need mid-card storylines for the women, stat.

24/7 update

The 24/7 Championship didn’t get a lot of time this week, but what we did get out of it proved intriguing. Everything took place essentially around Elias (the champion) having a farewell performance, as he’s now a SmackDown Superstar. This, naturally, is interrupted by a bad microphone and poorly-tuned guitar. The assistant outside of the ring is — also naturally — R-Truth, who is here to get “his” title back.

Typically, these sneak-attack challenges end with a roll-up, a pin and a title change. Not this time — Truth tries three times to pin Elias, even hitting him with a scissor kick, but each received a two-count. He then tries to hit Elias with one of the guitars, but Elias runs away.

So now we’ve established that quick roll-ups aren’t 24/7 Championship fatalities, that it doesn’t have to change hands every week despite people gunning for it and that Elias is a credible enough champion to be able to actually kick out of pin attempts and successfully retain.

Rey Mysterio is not retiring

After not being able to avenge the removal of his mask by Andrade, Rey Mysterio questioned whether his body could keep up with younger Superstars and whether it was time to retire. He seemed ready, but his son Dominic(k) implores him not to, at least not until the two can team together when he makes his in-ring debut.

The best part: Dominic(k) has a tattoo of his father on his arm, rendered loteria card-style, and it is awesome.

Welp!

Early in the night, we’re set to have United States Championship match pitting champ AJ Styles versus challenger Braun Strowman. But with Styles a heel and part of a heel faction with Raw Tag Team Champions Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson (collectively, still known as The O.C.), this ends via disqualification quickly as O.C. beat down Strowman three-on-one.

This draws out Universal Champion Seth Rollins to make the save to return the favor after Strowman did the same for him last week. This leads to two things: Rollins acknowledging that Strowman is only hanging around him because what Strowman really wants is the Universal Championship, and Rollins and Strowman challenging Gallows and Anderson for the Raw tag titles.

Rollins tells Strowman that because the two have performed mutual aid, that he’ll be the first to get a title shot, something they should worry about after the main event match later on. The match itself is lengthy, competitive and entertaining. And then, we get to the finish.

Strowman picks up the win after Rollins was able to negate Styles’ interference with a Stomp, which means that this thrown-together tag team was able to become champions against an established team in the Good Brothers for the sake of Rollins and Strowman being in a “can they coexist?” situation ahead of their inevitable Clash of Champions Universal Championship match.

It’s a bummer, because heel factions that hold a bunch of gold are always here for a good time and the Good Brothers needed and/or can use the help of holding the belts to re-legitimize them. On the other hand, this Strowman-Rollins win was only set up because of the upcoming match between the two, which could lead to a short reign as tag champs, with The O.C. turning around and winning them back quickly.

Regardless, Gallows and Anderson as champions were sacrificed in the service of the Rollins-Strowman story, and that might not have been the best way to go about it.

Otherwise, this was a fairly excellent episode of Raw, with long wrestling matches doing most of the major storytelling lifting. If this is what a world without Vince McMahon’s micromanagement looks like, maybe he should take a few more Mondays off moving forward.

What did you think of Raw this week? Join the discussion in the comments below!