{Hello all, I’ll be filling in tonight as our own Justin Czerwonka has the privilege of attending Monday Night RAW live. Should be an interesting ride tonight. – MJH}
Nothing like kicking off RAW with a little “No Chance In Hell”. Vince McMahon makes his return to RAW flanked by Triple H & Stephanie McMahon. After running down his past feuds (including his feud with God), McMahon made the announcement that if Team Authority loses to Team Cena at Survivor Series that The Authority will be made to disband and will no longer be in power. Dean Ambrose’s music hit as McMahon and The Authority are leaving the ring. Vince greets Ambrose with a smile and a handshake while Triple H & Stephanie look on disapprovingly. Ambrose enters the ring for his match with Cesaro after the break.
Vince McMahon rants to The Authority about how good it felt to be in the ring tonight in front of his limo. They wish him a good trip back home and constantly reassure him that they have everything in order. After he gets in the limo, Triple H and Stephanie turn away saying they “need to go figure this out”.
Cesaro makes his way to the ring. Ambrose & Cesaro lock up and begin trading wrist locks and armbars for all of 30 seconds before the brawl starts. Cesaro tosses Ambrose out of the ring but Dean comes back to ram Cesaro’s head into the barricade a few times before tossing him back in the ring. The lights go out before the break and Bray Wyatt appears in his rocking chair on the stage when the lights are raised.
Back from break and Cesaro has control delivering a wicked spinning neckbreaker while Ambrose was in Randy Orton’s rope DDT position. Ambrose makes a comeback with trademark brawling & rebound clothesline before Cesaro counters with his vicious “very European” uppercut. Ambrose counters and throws Cesaro outside. Ambrose hits a diving planca to the floor and follows it up with Dirty Deeds in the ring for the win. The lights go out and Bray Wyatt disappears before Ambrose can get to him.
Triple H and Stephanie talk about putting together the strongest Survivor Series team possible. Triple H immediately begins to call Randy Orton to Stephanie’s dismay since Orton RKO’d Seth Rollins last week. Triple H says they need the strongest team they can get now that Stephanie’s father put so much on the line.
The Usos make their entrance as Jimmy Uso gets ready to face The Miz. The Miz and Jimmy lock up as Damien Mizdow does his typical routine on the outside. Jey Uso looks at Mizdow strangely before joining in and mimicking what his brother is doing in the ring. Michael Cole tosses out a rather cool fact saying that Survivor Series will be the first PPV the WWE ever gives away for free. Jimmy hits the Miz with a dive over the top rope but Mizdow creates the diversion when he rolls into the ring with The Miz. Jey Uso knocks out Mizdow with a crescent kick but Jimmy gets caught getting into the ring, gets hit with the Skull Crushing Finale and The Miz picks up the win.
Sheamus takes on Tyson Kidd with Natalya because two Sheamus matches tonight are better than one as he takes on Rusev on the WWE Network right after RAW for the WWE United States Championship. Tyson Kidd and Sheamus actually have a back and forth match until things spill outside. When Sheamus went to charge Kidd, Kidd pulled Nattie in the way and rolled back into the ring to beat the count and Sheamus. Post match, Sheamus Brogue Kicks Kidd while he’s celebrating and walks out with the US Championship.
Dolph Ziggler makes his way to the ring as the announcers play up Ziggler’s involvement with John Cena and if he’ll join Team Cena. Instead of announcing an opponent, all of The Authority make their way to the ring. Triple H tries to convince Ziggler that he shouldn’t join Cena’s team. He even went as far as to play into rumors that Ziggler just can’t break through the “glass ceiling” because someone is in his way (in this story, John Cena). Triple H offers Ziggler “anything he wants” if he calls Cena and backs out of the match at Survivor Series. Dolph responds that all he wants is them out of power for good. Triple H then makes a match for the Intercontinental Championship between Ziggler and Seth Rollins next as punishment.
Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury are ringside for Rollins. Ziggler & Rollins start out with some mat wrestling before things start to pick up. Rollins nails Ziggler with a stiff clothesline before Ziggler makes a brief comeback with a beautiful dropkick and clothesline. Rollins counters and clotheslines Ziggler to the outside as we go to the break.
The match resets with a double clothesline as both men try to get back to his feet. Ziggler reaches his feet first and hits Rollins with his comeback set. Rollins counters a 10 punch in the corner with a turnbuckle powerbomb. Rollins misses a flying knee and Ziggler connects with the Fameasser for a long two. Rollins counters a superkick from Ziggler with a nice kick to the back of the IC champion’s neck. Ziggler avoids interference from Mercury but Noble hits him with a top rope clothesline and Rollins throws Ziggler into the steel post followed by the Curb Stomp. Before going for the cover, Randy Orton sneaks in and hits the RKO on Rollins. He walks out with the rest of The Authority shouting after him.
Randy Orton confronts Triple H & Stephanie McMahon backstage and begs for Seth Rollins in a match tonight. Stephanie asks why they would put their co-captains in a match against each other which completely sends Orton over the edge. Orton asks why he should even fight for this side and maybe he should fight for Team Cena. Triple H goes into pep-talk mode about needing “The Viper” on his team so he’ll give Orton his match against Rollins so they can get all of this crap out and then be done with it. Orton accepts and we have Orton versus Rollins later tonight.
Cue a very weird “eyeball” vignette that left the announcers speechless. Go to YouTube if you’re interested. It was weird.
Titus O’Neil is in the ring spelling his name and saying how he wants on Team Authority when Ryback’s music hits. Ryback is in full babyface mode again this week and Buffalo is into it by immediately chanting “Feed Me More”. Titus shows off an awesome display of strength by lifting Ryback over his shoulder, holding him there for awhile and then dropping him with a backbreaker. Ryback comes back with a spinebuster and goes to the Meathook clothesline as the crowd chants “Feed Me More” again. The Authority is shown watching the match as Ryback hits the still pitiful-looking Shell-Shocked finisher.
The Big Show makes his way down to the ring for his match against Mark Henry. I guess they’re fighting because they both suck at defending America. Now an Irishman gets to do it tonight after RAW on the WWE Network making RAW even longer than it already is. Big Show & Mark Henry traded a bunch of elbow drops and slams until Big Show kicked out of the World’s Strongest Slam & Henry got mad so he hit Show with the steel steps for the DQ. Henry then delivered the World’s Strongest Slam outside the ring on the stairs.
Renee Young tries to conduct an interview with Brie Bella but Nikki shuts that down because she didn’t approve it. Erick Rowan comes out of nowhere, strokes Renee’s hair and says “pretty”. Nikki Bella squares off with Emma as AJ Lee joins in on commentary (cue “CM Punk” chants). Nikki dominates the match and ends it with the Rack Attack. She then demands Brie go and slap AJ which caused Lee to knock out Brie and chase Nikki up the ramp.
Because we always have time to kill, it’s time to kill Zack Ryder at the hands’ of Rusev. Ryder gets crushed (dammit, I used it!) as The Authority looked at recruiting Rusev because apparently they have no American pride.
Los Matadores and Gold & Stardust are already in the ring as we’re set for Stardust versus Fernando. The Miz & Damien Mizdow are on commentary, well The Miz is on commentary and Mizdow is lip-syncing everything. El Torito knocks Goldust into The Miz which caused enough of a distraction that Fernando caught Stardust with a backstabber and picked up the upset.
Randy Orton makes his way to the ring and our own Justin Czerwonka gets some valuable screen time for the HTC/Inside Pulse Wrestling Pulsecast behind “The Viper”. Seth Rollins comes down the ramp with a limp and even sells a hurt back when taking off his shirt. Rollins even looked at Stephanie and Triple H to see if the match is still going to happen. The bell rings and Orton begins a one-sided asswhopping Steve Austin would be proud of.
We’re back and Rollins has control. Until he tries to hit a planca to the outside and Orton sidesteps him. Rollins eventually regains control as Triple H and Stephanie begin to look a little more worried. The action spills to the outside and Orton hits a side suplex to Rollins on the table. Orton then went into crazy cleaning mode by completely clearing the announcers’ table while Triple H asked him if he really needed to do this. Rollins rolled back to avoid any damage for now. He regained the advantage after dumping Orton to the outside and hitting a dive to the floor. Rollins rolls Orton back inside, jumps off the top for the flying knee and gets a long 2. Orton gains the upperhand after avoiding the Curb Stomp and moving into his signature moves. Orton hits the middle rope DDT and sets up the RKO. When he goes for it, Rollins reverses it into a backside and a quick 3 count out of nowhere. Triple H is almost out of his suit because of stress but asks Orton to shake everyone’s hand. Orton does until he gets to Rollins, who gets another RKO. Orton sets up the punt kick but Triple H stops him and tries to talk him down. He succeeds for a bit until Orton snaps and clocks Triple H too. He continues to take out everyone until Kane holds him on the table long enough for Seth Rollins to Curb Stomp him on the table. Orton’s head is legitimately busted open now and Stephanie is trying to convince Triple H to order The Authority to “finish this”. He finally did and Seth Rollins Curb Stomped him onto the steel steps. The announcers played up the fact that Orton is no longer in The Authority (and thus we now have a babyface Randy Orton) while Rollins posed and the doctors’ worked on Orton.
On the Network, the doctors are still working on Randy Orton and are putting him on a stretcher when Rusev’s music hits for the United States Championship match. Michael Cole set up the match and even said that neither Rusev nor Sheamus have ever tapped out in their WWE careers. Both men are pretty stiff as every punch & kick are loud and leave a mark. Neither man holds an advantage for long until Rusev counters the Battering Ram into a powerslam onto the floor and then nails a spinning heel kick. Sheamus begins to make a comeback when he tries to hit his tilt-a-whirl suplex but it ends up being mostly a slam. The advantage is traded back and forth with Sheamus breaking out of the Accolade and Rusev dodges the Brogue Kick. Rusev hits Sheamus with two superkicks and locks in the Accolade. Sheamus fights for a little while before passing out and thus your new WWE United States Champion, Rusev!
Total Runtime of RAW = 3 hours and 40 minutes
