SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…
WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
TORONTO, CANADA AT THE SCOTIABANK ARENA
AUGUST 12, 2019
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
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BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR
Announcers: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, Renee Young
Arena, SummerSlam Results, and Items Advertised by WWE
Tonight, WWE continues its stay in Toronto, Canada as Raw will unfold in the Scotiabank Arena following this past Saturday’s NXT: Takeover and of course SummerSlam last night. Smackdown will find itself here tomorrow night as well. WWE did this in the Scotiabank Arena last year around this time when Raw and Smackdown did back to back nights.
Here are the results from SummerSlam last night:
Kickoff show:
- Drew Gulak defeated Oney Lorcan to retain the Cruiserweight Championship
- Buddy Murphy defeated Apollo Crews via DQ as a result of Rowan attacking Murphy (did they even announce it, I don’t know)
- Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross defeated The IIconics (Peyton Royce & Billie Kay) to retain the Women’s Tag Team Championship
Main Show:
- Becky Lynch defeated Natalya in a submission match to retain the Raw Women’s Championship
- Goldberg defeated Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler proceeded to embarrass himself by yelling and Goldberg beat him down twice. What a toolbag.
- A.J. Styles defeated Ricochet to retain the U.S. Championship.
- Bayley defeated Ember Moon to retain the Smackdown Women’s Championship.
- Kevin Owens defeated Shane McMahon. As a result of winning the match, Owens need not quit WWE. Hallelujah.
- Charlotte Flair defeated Trish Stratus via submission.
- WWE Champion Kofi Kingston wrestled Randy Orton to a double count-out.
- “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt defeated Finn Balor
- Seth Rollins defeated Brock Lesnar to regain the Universal Championship
Here is what is advertised for tonight’s show thus far.
Matches & Segments:
- The Miz and Dolph Ziggler to face off tonight
- Bliss & Cross to face Kabuki Warriors in title defense on Raw
Storyline Follow-Up
- Rollins once again slays The Beast
- What’s on tap next for The Man?
- Can The O.C. remain “Too Sweet” after Summerslam
Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler
Last week on Raw, Dolph Ziggler thought he was signing a contract to face the Miz at SummerSlam. When he signed the contract, he didn’t realize the match was taking place tonight. He then thought Shawn Michaels was his SummerSlam opponent as Shawn was present for the contract signing. He said it wasn’t him, and that’s when we found out it was Goldberg. Goldberg defeated Ziggler last night in about a minute and speared him twice after Ziggler kept calling him out. Here he is on Twitter yesterday:
All you fickle, pathetic marks that complain online for a living, have a problem with part timers taking away from full time wrestlers, suddenly decide that redemption is the best way to send off a guy you have ripped on for 20 years. you are the problem! https://t.co/WbHDlUo81O
— Nic Nemeth (@HEELZiggler) August 10, 2019
Tonight, we get the match between Miz and Ziggler. They are longtime friends outside the WWE auspices as they are both from Cleveland, OH. and last feuded over the Intercontinental Championship back in 2016.
Frank’s Analysis: I thought the calling out of Goldberg was a bit overdone last night, but at this point Ziggler is such a joke anyway that it doesn’t matter. He’s good fodder at this point, and right for that role. I don’t know what to expect of this match tonight, but they sure emphasized it. At this point it was just the decoy to set up the Goldberg match.
Women’s Tag Team Championship: Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross (champs) vs. Kabuki Warriors (Asuka & Kairi Sane)
Last week on Raw, Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross won a fatal four-way elimination match to capture the Women’s Tag Team Championship. They successfully defended their championship on the kickoff show last night against the former champions, the IIconics (Peyton Royce & Billie Kay). Here they were in a WWE.com exclusive following the match last week and at SummerSlam last night following their win:
Here’s a clip of an Alexa interview on Inside the Ropes ahead of the SummerSlam match:
The Kabuki Warriors loom tonight as they vie for the titles as they did last week in the fatal four-way. They do hold a count-out victory and a non-title pinfall win over the former champs the IIconics, if that means anything.
Frank’s Analysis: Alexa just needs to turn babyface as she’s too likable in these interviews outside the WWE auspices! The partnership with Nikki has grown on me and I’m interested to see where it goes. I feel bad for Asuka and Kairi Sane as I feel like they’re better than a tag team WWE doesn’t take seriously, but we’ll see what happens. It’s better they do this than nothing. Paige being with them is still weird, but we’ll see where that goes.
Seth Rollins Reigns Again
In the main even of SummerSlam last night, Seth Rollins did what he did earlier this year at WrestleMania as he defeated Brock Lesnar to become Universal Champion for the second time. Unlike WrestleMania, the match went about 13 minutes and there were no low blows. Rollins won after hitting multiple stomps. Here are a few WWE.com exclusives of Rollins celebrating his win and an interview discussing what the win meant to him:
As Raw unfolds tonight, we will see what is next for Rollins as he begins his second Universal Championship reign.
Frank’s Analysis: The match was exactly what it needed to be, and the result was the right call. It’ll be interesting to see what opponents are lined up for Rollins as they haven’t exactly built up any heels. I anticipate Brock slides over to Smackdown considering their move to FOX and the announcement of the 20th anniversary show on October 4. Brock certainly was an integral part of the early days of Smackdown during his initial run from 2002-’04.
Next Up for The Man
In the opening match of SummerSlam, Becky Lynch retained the Raw Women’s Championship by beating Natalya in a submission match. She did so by getting Nattie (Natalya) to tap out to the Dis-arm-her.
Ahead of SummerSlam she went on Inside the Ropes and discussed Charlotte Flair, Ronda Rousey, and Nia Jax:
After defeating Natalya, she was interviewed in this WWE.com exclusive:
Like with her boyfriend Seth Rollins, we’ll see what’s next for Becky tonight.
Frank’s Analysis: I can’t see the feud with Natalya continuing, although her calling herself Canada’s new hero could be a way to keep it going, if it’s even worth keeping it rolling. There isn’t exactly a murderer’s row of heel opponents, a similar situation in which Rollins sits at the moment.
The O.C. is Still Too Sweet
The O.C. (U.S. Champion A.J. Styles & Raw Tag Team Champions Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson) continue their run “holding the gold,” if you will, as A.J. retained his U.S. title over Ricochet in what was a bit of a letdown match. Ricochet spent most of the match selling knee injury after a dive early in the match. Ultimately, A.J. won with a Styles Clash. Here they are in a WWE.com exclusive following A.J.’s win:
We’ll find out where the O.C. goes from here.
Frank’s Analysis: It sure feels like Ricochet and A.J. deserve another match, but would it be good? We expected a lot of A.J. vs. Nakamura and it was good, but not as good as we thought it would be. We’ll see, perhaps they take a break and reconvene at a later PPV. It’s anybody’s guess what they do with Gallows and Anderson.
Trish Stratus & Charlotte Flair
This is not an advertised item, but Trish has officially retired from in-ring competition following her loss to Charlotte Flair. Stepping a little out of character, here’s Trish and Charlotte in WWE.com exclusives following their match:
Frank’s Analysis: Normally I don’t like wrestlers stepping out of character, but this was nice on both of their parts. You can tell Charlotte appreciated being able to work with Trish. The match and story were exactly what it needed to be overall.
Other Match Results and Notable Segments from Last Week
I’ll just touch on things that weren’t followed up on during SummerSlam last night.
- Samoa Joe hijacked Raw until he got an apology from Roman Reigns for accusing him of causing Reigns’ recent misfortunes. When Joe went to the parking lot to confront him, someone sideswiped Reigns’ car.
- The following night on Smackdown, Buddy Murphy named Rowan as the assailant. Rowan attacked Murphy during his match with Apollo Crew on the kickoff show last night.
- Andrade defeated Rey Mysterio.
- Mike Kanellis defeated Maria at a real jacked-up OB/GYN office to win the 24/7 Championship but lost it to R-Truth moments later.
- The Viking Raiders won another squash match.
- Smackdown Tag Team Champions New Day (Big E & Xavier Woods defeated Raw Tag Team Champions The O.C. via DQ in a minute. They then paired with Ricochet to take on the entire O.C. (Gallows & Anderson w/A.J. Styles) and lost when Gallows and Anderson hit the Magic Killer on Woods.
Overall Thoughts on Tonight’s Show
We’re coming off of SummerSlam and thus it’s fair to expect the crowd to be hot, similar but not as much as the post-WrestleMania crowd. We’re a couple of months away from Smackdown going to FOX, AEW’s debut on TNT, as well as the recently announced NWA studio wrestling show. You wonder if you’ll start to see changes in the product given all the competition about to unfold and WWE moving to a major network. It’s been a fun 2019 with wrestling overall and it’s about to get even more interesting. We’ll see how things go tonight.
Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Questions and discussion are welcome! Thank you for reading.
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