Technical issues prevented me from covering last week’s show live – which is a shame, as it was one of the best overall shows of the year minus Mike Kanellis being buried to a Red Rooster-esque degree. Cole welcomes us to Newark, which isn’t Drake Maverick’s wife favorite place in the world. Becky and Seth face off with Andrade and Zelina to start the show off. Since they did nothing on TV to build this up, Renee reads some Tweets as the heels come down. Seth and Andrade have some solid exchanges until Seth takes him out with the stomp. Corbin and Lacey jump them on the ramp.
Heyman says that at the PPV, Seth or Kofi will have their titles taken by Brock Lesnar. The Bruan and Lashley stuff is shown before Miz comes down to team with the Usos against Elias and the Revival. Faces win off a series of crazy Uso dives and thankfully no stupid Miz attempted dives. Drake Maverick’s honeymoon title run is shown. Rey returns to face Lashley and gets squashed with a giant lifting complete shot and then a spear ends it. Lashley makes his match with Braun a last man standing match. Cesaro squashes No Way Jose and beats him with a sharpshooter.
The Street Profits beatbox for a minute before we get a recap of Maria and Mike’s deal airs. Backstage, Mike is a complete tool and Maria is a complete bitch to him and demands ice cream and pickles. Because she’s pregnant and this is a ’50s sitcom. Bayley and Nikki have a wacky split-screen promo about the beat the clock challenge to determine the stips for Bayley vs. Alexa on the PPV. Truth chats with Carmella about Drake needing to treat his baby right and wanting to make sure Drake isn’t showing the belt any scary movies before quoting “With My Baby Tonight”. The Viking Raiders destroy some jobbers and win with the Viking Experience. The 24/7 jobbers come out to get beaten up by them.
Roman yammers on a bit backstage before Ricochet talks about taking on both Gallows and Anderson in back to back matches. Ricochet beats Gallows with a cradle. Ricochet lands a run-up moonsault to AJ on the floor before hitting a 630 and beating Anderson and then getting beaten down by the group. EVOLVE’s weekend show is hyped up. Bayley vs. Logan is the first beat the clock match and Bayley wins with a sunset flip in the corner at 4:32. Nikki beats Dana Brooke in about 2 minutes to allow Alexa to name the stip on Sunday. Bayley hits the belly to Bayley after Nikki insults her.
Roman and Gary the Goat face Shane and Drew. Gary gets some offense in and then Shane sells a spinnng back elbow that misses by six inches and was aimed towards the chest, so he sells the jaw. He hits a flip dive in the exact same way that Cedric does and this gets Cedric more over than he’s been on Raw yet. Claymore ends it and Gary unmasks to reveal it is Cedric. Well, this is far better than being just a dude in the 24/7 Title mix, so hopefully it works out for him.
