WWE Raw 3/27/18 – Cena Battles Kane

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Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar come out and recap Brock’s destruction of Roman Reigns last week. Cole describes “the Beast’s assault as beastly!” and Heyman describes the suspension of Roman Reigns has been lifted – so that lasted not even one actual week. Roman comes down through the crowd with a chair and Brock kicks his ass anyway with a clothesline. Brock destroys him with the steps and demolishes him with a chair before leaving and coming back to F5 him on the steps. Well, Brock came off like the biggest badass on the Earth here – so this did a great job to get him over. Brock stands tall on the steps and points to the sign – Brock almost made that seem cool.


Mickie comes out with Alexa to face Nia, who largely squashes Mickie outside of Mickie getting a fluke cradle. Nia beats her by turning a top rope slam into a Samoan drop and Alexa jumps her – but Nia doesn’t register and Alexa leaves. HHH hypes up the main event of WWE as Ronda being beaten by an executive. HHH says this isn’t the Olympics, it isn’t judo and it isn’t MMA – it’s WWE and it’s their world. Steph says she doesn’t fear Ronda – she’s a McMahon! Steph says that they will humble Ronda just like every other superstar.

Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali face TJP and Drew Gulak in a return of the pointless 205 Live tag to marginalize the division. Drake puts the division over as being worthy of WM while Cole calls him Maverick Drake. Drake puts over 205 Live and tells people to watch it on the Network if they’ve missed the show recently. Drew dominates with matwork until Ali tags in Cedric. Cedric flies in with the diving lariat for 2.5. Ali sends Drew out and dives out while TJP cradles Cedric for 2. Cedric hits the Neuralizer, called the Disaster Kick by Corey, and the Lumbar Check hits before the 054 wins it.

Miz comes out for a MizTV segment with Rollins and Balor. They expose Bo as being agaisnt Miz and being a phony A-Lister. Miz confronts Bo and Miz says he’s the best IC Champion of all-time – better than Mr. Perfect, so now Axel is pissed. Miz says he slipped up and encourages them to calm down a bit. Miz says no one wants to see them fight him, resulting in Bo and Axel getting the biggest reactions of their careers before Miz realizes he’s trapped. Miz’s goons attack Seth and Balor before the faces run wild and they send Miz running while Balor attacks Seth.

Asuka squashes Jamie Frost and knocks her out with a Cro Cop high kick. Cole talks about the Woken match and Corey calls him out for insulting the match and the fans. Matt talks about how the evil stench of Bray is gone and has been replaced by the smell of Senor Benjamin’s daisies. Matt talks about having to pay tribute to Andre and win the battle royal and all who face him shall be deleted. Sasha and Bayley brawl backstage. Braun comes out and gets insulted by the Bar, leading to Brawl battling Sheamus. Braun demolishes him on the floor and powerslams him to win. Nothing was made about him destroying a billion-time World/WWE Champion like this, but it was impressive.


Kurt comes out and hypes up Ronda, who comes out and says she loves this just off-mic and has the biggest smile on her face. We get some shots of the Rousey-centric signs and at least one wasn’t PG-friendly. Ronda and her weird red eye makeup say that she’ll tear Steph up before Absolution comes down. Paige wants her to be in Absolution and she declines, so Kurt blocks Mandy from a cheapshot and Ronda clumsily blocks a shot from Sonya and punches her out. Ronda’s in-ring defense looks really bad while Mandy gets the MEAN FACE and tosses her…kinda in theory into Sonya with what should have been a weird exploder-looking thing. Mandy gets judo hiptossed and Kurt prevents the armbar. Well, no part of this worked exactly as it should – but it filled time.

The Balor Club of Luke and Anderson beat the Miztourage with the Magic Killer. Elias beats Rhyno with Drift Away and then hits it on Heath. Cena faces Kane and they have a long walk and brawl until Cena does Taker spots. He does the zombie situp, throat slash, and chokeslams Kane for 2. Cena AAs Kane through a table for the win before calling out Taker. Cena says that he’ll go to Mania as a fan if he has to, but Taker has let Kane down, himself down, and the fans down. They’re doing something fairly bold with this Cena-Taker match build by portraying Taker as a coward and especially not giving the character any time to explain it – but it’s different.