WWE Monday Night RAW Best Bits 13/02

Hello everyone and welcome back to Talk Wrestling World, I hope that you are all well and good! After Smackdown LIVE brought us a pretty decent pay per view this past Sunday last night it was time for Monday Night RAW to take centre stage and with a huge women's main event, a return, and a must see segment on the cards this was a show I was actually half looking forward to. As usual, we had a few matches my life could have done without but overall I was entertained and the quality of matches meant that for me the show was better than usual and I was able to get into the action far more. Of course I wasn't a fan of the opening. Yet again we had Reigns in the spotlight and challenging the main authority figure on RAW, Stephanie McMahon, something that didn't work last year and something that certainly won't work this year so god knows why they are trying to go back down that root. The main event was without a shadow of a doubt the highlight of the night. It was one of my favourite matches of the month and I cannot wait to talk about this more later in the post. We also got to see the start of what could be a fantastic storyline, something I will also be talking about in more detail later on in this blog post. Now, I am trying my best to get back into the swing of things here on my blog. I mentioned in yesterday's post that taking the week off while it was certainly needed has meant that I'm struggling to get back into a routine and find my motivation. Like I said, I have a few pre-posted blog posts coming up later in the week that I'm excited to get up and see what you guys think of it. As always any recent blog post will be linked bellow including my Elimination Chamber Highlights and finally, you can let me know what you thought of last night's show by leaving a comment bellow or by dropping me a tweet over at @TezangiVictoria.

Emmalina Makes Confusing debut

I'm not completely sure where to begin here. The return of Emma and debut of Emmalina is something the WWE have been teasing us with for four whole months. I have spoken about it here only blog and over on twitter on neumours different occasions and most of you will know where I stand with this. I did like the fact that she made us all wait, if you follow Emma on social media you'll understand that the reasons she gave for delaying her return really did help build her new character up, however, in typical WWE style, they just prolonged it for far too long and the effect just faded eventually. During last week's episode of Monday Night RAW, it was announced again that Emmalina would be debuting during this week's show and that is exactly what we saw last night fairly early into the show. However, disappointment soon struck as Emmalina made her entrance wearing a stunning gown and arriving to new entrance music. The whole new look for me personally just didn't work. I tweeted out last night that I don't really get why they have bothered going down a new road with her. There really was no need to make such a big change to her character. However, she literally was on the stage for around ten seconds showing us all her new look before the music cut and she announced that she would now undergo another makeover from Emmalina back to Emma. Honestly, I have never been so confused in such a short amount of time. I don't understand what happened, why it happened, and how I should feel. The whole thing just felt... I don't know... not great. I will admit that I'm interested in seeing what she meant and what we can expect from her but I do not want to be left waiting another seventeen weeks before she's back in the ring.

Festival of Friendship ends Badly for one Superstar

One of the most entertaining factors of Monday Night Raw for the past few months has been the relationship between Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens. The pair has provided us with some absolutely amazing promos and segments that I have not stopped talking about. I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed and been entertained by what we have seen from these guys since the pair have been working together. During the show last night we got to see the first "Festival of Friendship" in the WWE as the two looked to celebrate their friendship live on Monday night RAW. Again, the behaviour from Jericho and the facial expressions provided by Owens just made this fantastic. I have never related to a wrestler more than I did last night with Owens' general reaction to the whole festival. I was yet again left completely entertained, genuinely laughing at what was being presented and I just liked the entire thing. The gifts from Jericho to Kevin were fantastic. That painting is something I would gladly hang up in my house somewhere! We saw Jericho go above and beyond to show Kevin how much he appreciated their friendship and one of the many gifts he would shower the Universal champ with included calling out Goldberg, Owens Fastlane opponent, to confront him and do what he believed he should have done last week taking out the future hall of Famer. However, instead of the legendary Goldberg, the fans and Owens were left dealing with the return of Gillberg... While it may have been a little mark out moment for yours truly, Kevin Owens, on the other hand, was unimpressed and after taking out the parody act Owens would present Jericho with his own gift, a brand new list. However, in a twist that my heart is still trying to deal with, there was already a name on that list, the name...Chris Jericho and it was soon revealed the list, in fact, belonged to Kevin Owens and the champ would soon turn on his "best friend" breaking the hearts of the entire WWE Universe. We all knew this was coming but I personally just wasn't expecting it on the show last night. It makes things very interesting heading into Fastlane and eventually Wrestlemania and I cannot wait to see the reactions from both superstars next week.

Samoa Joe Targets Sami Zayn

When you think about NXT and the names it has produced you cannot help but mention Samoa Joe and Sami Zayn. Two men who are extremely passionate about NXT, two men who made such a huge impact there, and two men who will forever go down as faces of NXT. The pair have collided in their past when both men looked to seek gold in developmental but last night the two superstars came head to head for the first time on the main roster and while the plan is sure last minute there really is a story to tell between the two and theirwcollisiongoing to be inevitable. Now, I'm not certain what the WWE originally had planned for both these men heading into Wrestlemania. I am, however, sure that the plan was to have Seth Rollins and Triple H collide at the grandest stage of them all, Joe's involvement is still something I'm not completely sure about and where they were going with this. However, with Rollins' injury, the WWE had to think fast and move Joe onto something new and fresh midway into Wrestlemania season and what they have provided us with really is fantastic. Sami Zayn is the ultimate underdog. He's extremely easy to get behind and he's never given up attitude is something we have all grown to love about him and is such a key part of his character. Since his call-up to the main roster, Zayn really has struggled at times. He hasn't jumped right into the top spot like he deserves and the challenges he has faced have allowed him to yet again showcase that underdog character. He is, however, yet to really make an impact. His work with Kevin Owens and Braun Strowman have been the highlight of his main roster career but knowing what he is capable of means I know there is still so much more the WWE have to show when it comes to Zayn. In recent weeks he has been building momentum picking up victories here and there including a win over the current United States champion Samoa Joe and last night's win over Rusev. In an interview earlier on in the night Joe made a slight dig at Zayn and after Sami had picked up the win against Rusev he was attacked by Joe. The whole thing just worked perfectly. We got to hear from both men and we can really see where the story is going between the two. If I was booking this feud I would focus on Zayn once again having to prove himself. Focus on Zayn just not being able to pick up the win over Joe. Seveal loses against him results in Stephanie having mjore involvment and as Mania roles around we stick Zayn in a situaton that means if he loses to Joe one last time he leaves Monday night RAW. I am going to be writing about this in more detail so keep an eye out for that soon.

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The story between Bayley and Charlotte is something we have seen grow and develop over the past few months and last night Bayley was given another shot at becoming champion when she went toe to toe with Charlotte in the main event of this week's episode of Monday night RAW. Of course, I was over the moon to see the women once again in the main event and throughout the night this was certainly made to feel like a big, important match. By the time the end of the night came around this match felt like a main event, it felt important and it really did feel as though this match belonged in the main event. Personally, I wasn't as excited for this match as I have been previous championship matches in the division but I was sure, knowing their history, that Charlotte and Bayley were going to deliver a fantastic match and that's exactly what they did. There really is so much history between these two women and you felt that in this match. There was a great deal of passion from both sides, we had the cocky, arrogant side of Charlotte shine brightly as she throughout worked as the dominate heel allowing Bayley to completely remain in that underdog mode. She had the entire arena behind her and it was easy to back her. Both women looked amazing throughout the match but it was Charlotte who spent the earlier parts of this match in control. Making sure everyone knew she was the queen of the division she made an example of Bayley pulling everything out of the bag and targeting the neck of Bayley. However, the leader of the hug nation kept fighting on and refused to back down. Feeding off the energy of the live crowd, Bayley continued to bounce back and continue getting right back up regardless of what the champ brought to the table. What I loved the most about this match besides the strong wrestling from both women was the storytelling. I know I always say it but crowd reactions and strong storytelling really can change a match completely and this match had both. The longer the match went on the more the fans were invested with everyone in the arena up on their feet cheering the challenger on as the match progressed. Charlotte had her game plan throughout whether it be belittling Bayle, targeting the neck or using Dana Brooke while Bayley had that never die attitude, refusing to back down. She used everything in her power to get the upper hand and there were several close calls towards the end of this match from a figure four leg lock, an elbow drop from the top rope and several other spots that led everyone to believe Bayley would be closing in on a victory. However, interference from Dana Brooke meant that the numbers were against Bayley and it began to dawn on fans that Charlotte may just be retaining for a little longer. It wasn't long however for things to turn around and the playing field was soon made even thanks to Sasha Banks' arrival taking out Dana and a little poke at the midsection from Sasha's crouch (I cringed at that sentence) meant that Bayley was able to capitalise and a belly to Bayley resulted in the one, two, three and once again a brand new champion was crowned. Now, I'm really hoping that the WWE keep this title on Bayley. They have just about enough time to build up a story in time for Charlotte's Fastlane rematch where Bayley looks to end Charlotte's pay per view streak for good. I do believe that the best option is to go with Sasha playing a role in the match. If she can help Bayley retain at Fastlane, something that will make sense,  and then turn on her straight after would just make perfect sense. It just works. The story is there, the foundation has been set and hopefully, it's something they go with. For now, what I will say is that this really was a great main event and I really did enjoy the match.

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