WWE Monday Night Raw, SmackDown takeaways: Decisions, decisions

Here’s all the major happenings that took place on this week’s episodes of WWE Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live, including Bayley explaining herself.

The big story coming out of WWE Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live this week was Bayley confirming her allegiance to longtime best friend Sasha Banks via taking a chair to Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch on Monday night.

Bayley and Lynch were set to team up against the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss in a “Champions Showcase” as Raw‘s main event. That, however, was interrupted by the presence of Banks, who yet again attacked Lynch. When Banks brought a chair into the equation (yet again), Bayley feigned as though she would try to stop her. But instead, Bayley herself attacked Lynch, showing what side of the battle line she has chosen.

Bayley tried to explain herself on SmackDown, essentially attributing her actions to her sense of loyalty to Banks in concert with her frustration that she, the SmackDown Women’s Champion, has been viewed as less important than Lynch and less important than her Clash of Champions challenger Charlotte Flair. This, naturally, drew Flair to the ring, allowing her to also be ambushed by Banks and Bayley and ultimately laid out with yet another steel chair beating.

One would assume that this could lead to an uneasy alliance between Flair and Lynch, thus splitting the Four Horsewomen of NXT in twain. But it’s certainly the chaotic Banks and Bayley’s loyalty to her that has become the centerpiece of this storyline.

The best thing is that no one is wrong: Banks isn’t wrong for her (whether shoot or kayfabe) frustration with her place in the women’s division, but Lynch isn’t wrong when she countered that everything she has accomplished was essentially handed to Banks years ago. Bayley isn’t wrong that her championship seems secondary to Lynch’s, but Lynch has done a better job at connecting with the fans during her ascent. Flair is Flair — a multi-time champion with the pro wrestling pedigree which means she’s often justified in getting what she wants.

All four women’s motivations are complex and grounded in logic and the years and years of history between them makes for a rich story. This is one that will continue well beyond Clash of Champions (and, in a sense, will likely do so throughout all four of their respective careers), and this type of long-term storytelling is so welcome in a company that frequently displays selective memory.

King of the Ring

The King of the Ring tournament has, for the most part, delivered high-quality matches, and it continued this week even if some of the results were less than satisfactory. To no one’s surprise, Baron Corbin prevailed over Cedric Alexander via End of Days, but at least the match was given time and was competitive. Alexander, despite the loss, has been having a solid 2019 since being resurrected via Roman Reigns storyline, so it will be interesting to see where he heads now that he’s eliminated from the tournament.

Also on Raw, a fantastic match between Samoa Joe and Ricochet was marred by a confounding ending, with the two men pinning each other simultaneously. The solution is to place both Joe and Ricochet in a match next Monday against Corbin, making for a triple threat that guarantees the man who is not pinned but who does not win is going to be in a bad mood. That will at least set up something for post-Clash of Champions for at least two of these guys, should WWE care to do so.

On SmackDown, we got two more good matches with not-so-satisfying outcomes. The first, Ali being defeated by Elias, at least wasn’t a surprise, but it also guaranteed that Andrade wouldn’t be winning in his matchup against Chad Gable later in the night.

Ali-Andrade was the King of the Ring matchup us blue-brand bracket watchers were hoping for, and while it’s clear Gable is very good (we just haven’t seen him in a while), Gable versus Elias just doesn’t have that wow factor on paper. But one good match can make a star turn. At this point, though, it seems like Ricochet versus Elias is the obvious match for the KOTR final.

Hubris

Because Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman are both overconfident and overcompetitive, they’ve put themselves in a pretty complicated situation ahead of Clash of Champions.

The two are Raw Tag Team Champions, but that means they have to face the team of Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode at Clash of Champions. Rollins is also WWE Universal Champion and has promised to defend it against Strowman — also, at Clash of Champions.

And both Strowman and Rollins have run afoul of The O.C. (U.S. Champion AJ Styles and his buddies, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows), with Styles cleverly desiring facing both Strowman and Rollins for his championship. This could thus force Strowman and Rollins into three matches at Clash of Champions and potentially positions Gallows and Anderson to be part of the tag title match.

Rollins and Strowman are quickly learning that Rollins’ willingness to fight anyone/be a fighting champion/be the ace and face of WWE and Strowman’s confidence in his ability to serve his hands to anyone he wants have resulted in both of them picking and getting way more fights than is reasonable or recommended. Perhaps they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.

Rowan versus Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns’ attacker was Rowan — acting alone, he has assured us, and as Daniel Bryan has confirmed. Bryan is still incensed with Rowan for lying about his plot to destroy Reigns and Rowan refuses to be anyone’s puppet any longer and has established his right to free will and to make his own decisions.

As such, Rowan attacks both Reigns and Bryan, beating up the former and driving the latter through the announce table (the aftermath of which actually opened this week’s 205 Live). This all seems to point to Rowan acting alone and Bryan being scorned in the process, but that explanation, though the simplest WWE has given us via the story thus far, doesn’t feel right. It feels more like a red herring and that Bryan is somehow the mastermind behind the whole, complicated business.

Regardless, the next step isn’t likely to come until after Reigns and Rowan meet at Clash of Champions. Fingers remain crossed that Luke Harper will ultimately factor into things.

Odds and ends

The Miz defeated Cesaro cleanly on Raw this week, just days after Cesaro was completely, perfectly awesome (as he does, and is) at NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff, taking on and besting Ilja Dragunov. More of the latter, less of the former. Hey, if Cesaro wants to spent extended time in NXT UK, there won’t be any complaints from this direction. How about Cesaro versus WALTER? A loss to The Miz is one thing; a fight with WALTER is something else (it’s better).

It appears that Fire and Desire (Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville) will be challenging WWE Women’s Tag Champs Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss, having earned the right on SmackDown by defeating the champions in a non-title match.

Randy Orton set a trap for Kofi Kingston by describing how he set a trap for Kingston last week and asking that Kingston “face him like a man” in the ring at SmackDown. Before Kingston could reach the ring, though, he was attacked by The Revival. Orton then continued to call Kingston “stupid” while beating him down, yet again.

The 24/7 Championship switched hands again on SmackDown, with Drake Maverick being pinned by Bo Dallas, Maverick capitalizing on chaos later on to pin Dallas and win it back and R-Truth then pinning Maverick to become champion once again.

Aleister Black realized that a better way to pick a fight in WWE is to actually head to the ring rather than talk about it in a promo room in the back. Shelton Benjamin takes him up on it, but is quite swiftly dispatched via Black Mass.

Lacey Evans threw a handkerchief at Natalya, causing a brief distraction that allowed to her hit A Women’s Right and get the win in a match that should serve to blow off their nascent “feud.”

Shinsuke Nakamura defeated local talent via Kinshasa, with Sami Zayn’s live running commentary remaining a highlight of this pairing.

And, of course, the Firefly Fun House returned, featuring Bray Wyatt feeding puppet Vince McMahon money to keep him happy and satiated after puppet McMahon seemed angry that Wyatt will be having a Universal Championship match against either Braun Strowman or Seth Rollins at Hell in a Cell.

That about wraps it up for the biggest talking points from Raw and SmackDown for the Labor Day early-week. What did you and didn’t you enjoy from both shows? Is Bayley technically a heel now and will Sasha Banks inevitably take advantage of her again? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.