Monday Night RAW Highlights

Hello everyone and welcome back to Talk Wrestling World, I hope you are all well and good! I'm back today with this weeks Monday night RAW Highlights. I know I know, these are not as popular as my full Review and Reactions post but I have such a busy day with so much to do in such a short amount of time I just felt as thought it was best to stick to a Highlights post. I have a goal this month of uploading a review of a highlights post for every single show and so I pushed myself to get this done. Now, you would have seen that last week I only uploaded a post on the Monday and that was because I was seriously ill. I could hardly move from my bed and I was not in the mood to do any work what so ever. I did closer to the end of the week get a couple of post pre written and so there are a thew great posts heading your way over the next couple of week. Tomorrow I will be uploading part one of my final post in the Brand extension series where I will be listing five of my top Smackdown drafts. Part two will be uploaded next week. I also have a couple of Lucha Underground posts coming up as well! At the moment I'm not sure whether or not I am writing Battleground prediction post, if you would like to see them than do let me know. As always, any recent blog posts will be linked bellow including last nights RAW Prediction post. Finally, you can let me know what you thought of last nights Monday night RAW.

A patriotic opening

So this weeks Monday night RAW didn't star with an in ring promo/segment. Instead the camera cut straight to backstage where a pre recorded food fight between superstars was aired. This was without a doubt one of the strangest openings to Monday night RAW I have seen. I don't know about you but the last thing I was expecting to see at one AM is a food fight between a bunch of WWE Superstars. The little segment transitioned into Lillian Garcia singing the American National Anthem witch was of course to be expected and then we had our first match of the night. Now, I mentioned in my RAW predictions last night that I was not looking forward to the United States Championship match between current Champ Rusev and Titus O'Neil. and I know I sure as hell was not the only one. However, I loved the fact that it was booked as the first match of the night. I did pick up on the fact that a lot of other fans didn't like the fact that it was the first match of the night but I actually thought it was smart booking. The US championship match following the performance of the National Anthem just fitted in perfectly. It followed the theme of the night and kept the Patriotic feel alive. It just made sense and to be honest it's rare that the WWE ever get it right when it comes to booking and places of the match throughout the night. It was also pretty good to get it out of the way! The match wasn't anything special and I felt as though the ending should have been done a lot lot better. I did however like Rusev's little talk down to America after. Another perfect fit to the night and it was actually my favourite part of the entire opening. It's gonna be interesting seeing where Rusev goes next and yes I am still waiting for Kurt Angle to make his return and interrupt Rusev but lets face it, I've been waiting well over a year maybe it's time to forget about it.

Sasha Banks Continues To Make a Statement  

It was nice to see the women's division have more than one segment this week. To be fair, with the up and coming brand split it's something the WWE really do need to do. Now, as we have seen over the past couple of weeks, Sasha Banks has made it perfectly clear what she wants and has done everything in her power to target the current WWE Women's Champion and make a statement and last night was no different.  Standing in the middle of the ring, Charlotte alongside former NXT superstar Dana Brooke where the confident champ boasted about her debut year in the WWE and how much she has accomplished during her short amount of time on the main roster. She went on to talk directly talk about Sasha Banks who she claimed was simply jealous of her. Now, I have to say that I really have been so so impressed with how far Charlotte has come since her debut when it comes to her mic abilities. She does still do this thing where she literally yells down a microphone but she works as such a great heel and her mic work really does make a feud. Talking of mic work, Sasha literally had the entire arena backing her last night and every work she spoke came out like a true boss. She had everyone eating at the palm of her hand and her "I am the conversation" line was an easy highlight of this segment. Sasha did once again end the night looking strong once again looking stronger than the champ having her locked in a perfect banks statement. I don't know about you but I thought this was such a key moment in this storyline. There is so much history and chemistry between these two superstars and you could really see that last night. This was the little push the story needed and this really is the spark the entire Women's division has needed. I do hope that in the coming weeks the WWE push the boundaries with this feud a little more and the girls are able to go a little further but I have to say that so far I'm liking it and I'm very excited to see where it goes. 

John Cena Finds his allies 

I was just as surprised as you to see John Cena not cut an extremely patriotic promo during last night Monday night RAW but I was glad to see the story between him and the Club develop even more. I have been speaking about these guys for a long time here on my blog and in a couple of weeks time I will be uploading a blog post where I speak in more detail about that brilliant Money in the bank match between John Cena and AJ Styles. Now, during this segment last night, I have to admit that it was AJ Styles and the club that had me most entertained. Styles completely dominated this segment with his brilliant promo. He explained himself well and went on to push this feud to the next level all on his own without the help of Cena who did do his own thing last night to help this feud but it was Styles who gave it the push. During this segment we got to see AJ Styles talk about the lack of support for Cena in the lock due to his past and the things he has done to the men in the back. He also made fun of the fact that he and Anderson and Gallows would be there to beat him up every single week. My favourite part of this entire segment however was the mention of the Japanese tour. It was the perfect fit and it really did highlight so many issues Styles has with Cena. There was another beat down however there was someone waiting to back Cena with Enzo and Cass making their way to the ring to back the fifteen time world  champion. Personally I didn't see this coming. I was kind of expecting to see The Usos come out and make this night a terrible one for me but I was delighted to see Enzo and Cass instead make an appearance. We now know that at the Battleground pay per view in three weeks time, the former NXT Superstars will team up with Cena to take on the Club. Great booking and the perfect way to use Enzo and Cass and also boost their main roster position. Another well done move from the WWE last night. 

Excuse Me!

If there is any former general manger I wanted to see make a return and put themselves forward as the new manager of Smackdown it was Vickie Guerrero. Such a big part of the time I watched WWE when I was younger she is someone that was always on my screen and someone I always had a huge opinion of. Over the past month or so we have seen the likes of Teddy Long, Cooperate Kane, and John Laurinaitis all make surprise appearances putting their pitch forward as to why they should be the Smackdown general manager starting July nineteen. Now, the plugging for the brand split has been driving me insane but seeing Vicki make an appearance last night really did put a little smile on my face. It made this whole lead up to the brand extension complete for me and I enjoyed seeing her back on my screen far more than I was expecting too even if it was only for one night.

A Battle of Mind Games

Last night we really did get to see stories develop and have the extra push they need, including the main event picture. Both Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins competed in singles matches last night and

after defeating the Miz in a solid one on one match the champ took a seat at commentary to watch Seth Rollins take on former champion, Dolph Ziggler in what was yet another great match. I have to mention the brilliant job that Ambrose and Rollins are doing in making sure that Reigns has his place in this match and making sure we all remember that this is a triple threat match at Battleground. Thanks to promos from both Rollins and Ambrose, Reign does feel like he has a place in this match. The story development last night really was great with Rollins and Ambrose both gaining momentum in their singles matches, both having time on the mic, and both playing mind games with one another. I am of course seriously excited for this match but it has been difficult to get excited for this huge Shield triple threat as much as I would have liked to without Reigns there but these guys are doing a brilliant job as I have already mentioned. It was great being able to see the champ stand strong. Not only did he defeat another champion in the Miz but he also delivered a brutal dirty deeds to Rollins on the announce table that just looked and sounded brilliant. 

They are my highlights for this weeks Monday night RAW. I have to admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of this weeks show. I loved the patriotic feel and theme throughout the night and we had a nice predicable, cheesy main event witch I won't be too harsh about. It was a night full of story development witch I of course loved! You can let me know what you thought of this weeks show by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me at @TezangiVictoria.