WWE RAW Coverage: Lesnar Returns, RAW Still Plods

After a terrible TLC pay per view, Monday Night RAW did nothing to build momentum for Royal Rumble. Sure, the idea of Ryback and Rusev is interesting, as was the vignette for The Ascension and Roman Reigns’ RAW return, but overall, RAW was a slow-moving mess.

Chris Jericho was a solid guest GM and added humor and polish every chance he had, as did Paul Heyman, but with a crappy card and zero suspense away from a rare appearance from Brock Lesnar, RAW continues to tread in the water, rather than manipulate the currents around it.

While it’s easy to get excited about the possibility of Seth Rollins becoming a Heyman guy, it’s not enough to get us talking at the water cooler.

It’s sad that NXT R-evolution was not only better than TLC, but also better than this week’s RAW.

Matches:

Luke Harper and The Big Show vs. Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler and Erik Rowan: Show and Harper beat on Ziggler until Rowan made the save and took down Harper with a Full-Nelson Slam and Show with a Spinning Side Kick. But after Harper and Ziggler cancelled each other out on the outside, Show got the win on Rowan with the KO Punch.

Divas Champion Nikki Bella and Brie Bella vs. Alicia Fox and Natalya Neidhart W/Tyson Kidd: Neidhart got the quick win over Brie with the Sharpshooter after Neidhart disposed of Nikki. Ironically, Kidd seemed more focused on Nikki than his wife.

Big E. Langston and Xavier Woods w/ Kofi Kingston vs. Goldust and Stardust: A lengthy, pace-less match that ended after Woods and Kingston hit the Midnight Hour for the pin on Goldust.

Adam Rose w/The Bunny vs. Kane: Kane won after he Chokeslammed both Rose and Bunny- at the same time. After the match, Kane hit the Tombstone Piledriver on Bunny.

Street Fight: Chris Jericho vs. Paul Heyman: Brock Lesnar made an appearance and quickly countered the Code Breaker and hit the F-5 on Jericho.

The Miz w/Damien Sandow vs. Jimmy Uso w/ Jey Uso: Pretty standard Miz singles match w/Sandow’s antics on the outside. Uso nearly got the win with the Flying Cross Body, but it wasn’t until Jey hit Miz with a Slammy award, that Jimmy got the win with the top rope Splash.

Steel Cage: Seth Rollins w/Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury vs. John Cena: Rollins was solid and nearly won with the Blockbuster after several prior attempts to escape were thwarted by Cena. Rollins got extra marks for kicking out of the Attitude Adjustment later in the match as well. Cena could have escaped at one point, but Noble held the door closed. Cena fought back again and hit the Sicilian Slice, but was unable to get the pin. Mercury’s interference later also stopped Cena from escaping, but Rollins couldn’t hit the Curb Stomp and instead walked into the STF. After Rollins failed to escape again, Noble threw in the MITB briefcase, but Rollins got smoked with a Cena Clothesline instead. After Rollins escaped the AA however, he managed to hit Cena in the gut with the briefcase, but again, couldn’t get the pin. Rollins then tried to escape the cage, but Cena countered with an awesome AA from the top rope. With both Cena and Rollins down, Lesnar hit the ring and hit three German Suplexes on Cena before he nailed him with an F-5.

At that point, Rollins and Heyman shook hands and before Rollins nailed the Curb Stomp and exited the cage for the win.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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