WWE Monday Night Raw kicks off with the Big Dog, Roman Reigns. Jerry “The King” Lawler is on commentary substituting for Corey Graves, who is on vacation. They show a video replay of the incidents that have befallen Reigns during the last few weeks on WWE television. They also showed Reigns’ confrontation with Daniel Bryan and Rowan from Smackdown Live last week.
Dolph Ziggler is out next and he has a microphone, He tells Roman Reigns that those bad things that almost happened to him weren’t as bad as getting speared by Goldberg three times. He continues and tells Roman that he knows he’s the Big Dog, but it should have been him. Before Roman could answer, Dolph Ziggler cheap shotted him with a kick to the face. The match begins and Roman jumped all over Dolph and threw him outside of the ring. After regaining his composure from the superkick, Roman went to attack Dolph only to miss and get nailed with a ZigZag. After a back-and-forth match with several near-falls and signature moves, Reigns delivered a jaw-jarring spear to Dolph Ziggler to pick up the victory.
Becky Lynch was backstage in the locker room area cutting a promo. She talked about the beat down she took from Sasha Banks last week. Lynch also called Sasha Banks one of the greatest to never actually be great. She ended by saying that when she gets her hands on Sasha Banks, she should really give her something to run home and cry about. Straight fire from the WWE Raw Women’s Champion, “The Man”, Becky Lynch.
Jerry “The King” Lawler was in the ring for the Kings Court where he was supposed to interview Sasha Banks. Before he got to that, he talked about the King of the Ring tournament and how big a deal it is that it’s back. Then the lights started to flicker. Lawler said, ”I’ve seen this before,” and starts to bail. He got to the top of the ramp and the lights went all the way out. When they came back up slowly, The Fiend was standing behind Jerry Lawler and delivered the Mandible Claw to the WWE Hall of Famer, laying him out at the top of the ramp.
Up next, The Miz and Ricochet joined forces to battle Baron Corbin and Drew McIntyre in a tag team affair. After receiving a hot tag from The Miz, Ricochet picked up the victory by hitting a Recoil on Baron Corbin.
United States Champion AJ Styles (along with the OC, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows), defended his championship against the monster among men, Braun Strowman. The match didn’t go on for very long before it was thrown out due to disqualification after Anderson and Gallows got involved to help AJ attack Braun Strowman. WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins came out to make the save.
It’s another King of the Ring tournament match featuring two of WWE’s biggest bruisers in Cesaro and Samoa Joe. Cesaro began the match with a flurry by hitting a diving uppercut on Samoa Joe. But it was Joe who would advance to the quarterfinals after making Cesaro tap out to the Coquina Clutch.
Elias, the 24/7 Champion, attempted to conduct a concert in the middle of the ring, only to suffer from poor lighting and sound. The sound man revealed himself to be R-Truth who attempted to wrest the championship away from Elias. Elias kicked out of two pin attempts before escaping with his guitar and his 24/7 Championship.
Backstage, Rey Mysterio, the master of the 619 and WWE’s greatest high-flyer, attempted to retire in an interview. His son Dominic came in and told him that he wanted to debut alongside his father and urged him not to retire.
The New Day and The Revival fought to a standstill and had their match interrupted by the Viper, Randy Orton. He eventually hits an RKO on Big E. WWE Champion Kofi Kingston also ate an RKO from Orton. The Revival then held Xavier Woods down and inserted his leg through a chair. Randy Orton made Kofi Kingston watch as he jumped off the turnbuckle and smashed Xavier’s leg.
Since Jerry “The King” Lawler had been laid out by The Fiend, Sasha Banks had no platform to explain her actions from last week. When asked by Michael Cole, Sasha simply replied: “you’re welcome”. Banks also talked about how happy she was with her new blue hair. Natalya was backstage with her arm in a sling from last week’s attack when she ran into Sasha Banks again, who again beat her down and told her to go to hell with her dad.
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss defended their titles against Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose. Cross helped the duo retain their championships by pinning Sonya DeVille for the victory.
Before his King of the Ring match up against Cedric Alexander, Sami Zayn came out and talked about how he was going to use the King of the Ring tournament to turn things around. Unfortunately, Cedric Alexander had other plans as he would knock Sami Zayn out of the tournament by nailing him with a Lumbar Check and picking up the victory.
Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows put their raw Tag Team Championships on the line as they faced WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman. Gallows and Anderson targeted Seth’s injured ribs and worked him over pretty good. He eventually got the hot tag to Braun Strowman who cleared the ring, warded off AJ Styles interference, and secured the victory with a running powerslam to become the new Raw Tag Team Champions along with Seth Rollins.
Smackdown Live opens with The Viper, Randy Orton. David Otunga and Byron Saxton are filling in on commentary tonight. A video is played from last week where The Revival and Randy Orton destroyed WWE Champion Kofi Kingston and his New Day brother, Xavier Woods.
Back in the ring, Randy says that Kofi Kingston is stupid and that’s why he and The Revival attacked Woods and Kingston last week. Orton continues on before he interrupted by the New Day. Randy looks toward the ramp for Kofi Kingston inviting him down for a fight. But Kofi sneaks in the ring behind him and nails him with Trouble in Paradise. Kofi then grabs a chair and puts Randy’s leg in it to stomp on it just like The Revival did Xavier Woods. Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson make their way down for the save, but as Randy Orton gets away, Dash and Dawson both eat chair shots from Kofi Kingston.
They show another video replay of the near-accidents that have befallen Roman Reigns for the past few weeks.
Andrade is out next with Zelina Vega to take on Apollo Crews in a King of the Ring tournament match. Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens are backstage and Kevin asks Shane to reconsider the $100,000 fine he levied on him last week. Shane said he would take it under consideration.
After a good back-and-forth match, Zelina Vega got involved by preventing Apollo Crews from dragging Andrade back into the ring. The momentary distraction allowed Andrade to hit the hammerlock DDT on Apollo Crews and advance to the 2019 King of the Ring quarterfinals.
Backstage, Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan enter the dressing room with someone under a black sheet. He tells the person to sit right there and not to move or he’ll be sorry.
Elias is backstage walking and strumming some notes on his guitar. He stops and asks someone who is standing backstage to turn around. The guy turns around and Elias takes the guy’s hat off. The man then opens his jacket to reveal a referee’s shirt. Elias then asks, “Where is he?” and the referee points to a production crate.
Elias makes the referee hold his guitar and he opens the production crate to find Drake Maverick. He yanks Drake Maverick out of the crate by his neck and gives him a letter. The letter stated that the 24/7 rule is suspended for the entirety of the night while Elias focuses on picking up a victory in his King of the Ring match against Kevin Owens. He then stuffs Drake Maverick back into the production crate.
A Moment of Bliss is up next with WWE women’s Tag Team Champions Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross. Her guest tonight is Charlotte Flair. Charlotte comes out and claims that Bayley has devalued the Smackdown Women’s Championship and that at Clash of Champions she’s going to restore its prestige. Bayley comes out and confronts Charlotte and tells her that she can call herself the Queen but Bayley is the WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion and she’s better than her. She accepted the challenge for the match at Clash of Champions and before she walked off the stage, she shoved Charlotte out of her chair.
Backstage Buddy Murphy is in his dressing room putting on his gear when Roman Reigns walks in. Reigns get up in his face and asked him if he was sure he saw Rowan. Buddy reiterates the fact that he was pretty sure he saw Rowan. He has a match next against The New Daniel Bryan, who will be accompanied to ringside by Erick Rowan.
Back from the break and in a hard-fought contest, Buddy Murphy picked up the win with his finisher, Murphy’s Law. At the close of the match, he foiled Erick Rowan’s attempt to interfere in the match. Murphy picks up the biggest victory in his young WWE career by defeating WWE former champion, Daniel Bryan.
After a commercial break, Buddy Murphy was backstage and about to be interviewed about his victory when Rowan and Daniel Bryan attacked him. Daniel Bryan repeatedly called him a cowardly liar and had Rowan claw slam Buddy Murphy on to a production crate.
The Revival, Dash Wilder & Scott Dawkins, make their way to ringside still holding their ribs after the chair shots they received from WWE Champion Kofi Kingston at the start of the show. They grabbed the microphone and insult the New Day by calling them cowards. They also challenged Big E and Xavier Woods to a WWE Smackdown Live Tag Team Championship match at Clash of the Champions. The Revival carry on they get interrupted by Heavy Machinery. After some good tag team action that went back and forth, the Revival picked up the victory.
Chad Gable is backstage doing an interview and he says that people have been counting him out his entire life and he doesn’t mind being the underdog. As he is giving his interview, Shelton Benjamin sneaks out of the locker room and puts a sign on the door behind Chad Gable. The sign says you must be at least this tall to participate in the King of the Ring tournament – a knock on Chad Gable’s diminutive stature.
Miz TV is up next and his guest is Sami Zayn. Sami says that he’s found his true calling in WWE and that is to help people. It’s not long before the Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura walks out. Apparently, Sami Zayn will now be speaking for him. The Miz tried to address Nakamura, but he says nothing and points to Sami. As Sami goes again to address the Miz, Nakamura attacks The Miz from behind. They double-team him and Miz gets nailed with a Kinshasa.
Backstage Shane McMahon is in the office and in comes Kevin Owens. He tells Kevin that he considered his request, but Kevin had yet to apologize. Owens apologized for putting his hands on the ref and Shane lifted the $100,000 fine. He also told Kevin that if he intentionally put his hands on another WWE official, he would be fired on the spot.
Kevin Owens versus Elias in another King of the Ring tournament match is next. A few minutes into the match, Shane McMahon came down to ringside. He sat on the outside while Elias and Owens battled. After an outside sequence, Shane stopped Kevin Owens from attacking Elias only to take off his shirt and reveal a referee’s shirt. Shane inserted himself into the match as the referee. Elias picked up the victory thanks to a very fast count from Shane McMahon and moves on in the King of the Ring tournament.
Backstage, Daniel Bryan and Rowan are in the locker room with the individual under a black sheet. Roman Reigns walks in and they unmask him. It turns out that the guy under the hood is a Rowan doppelganger and it’s easy to see why Buddy Murphy may have confused the two. The show ends as Roman Reigns has a puzzled look on his face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcvdIFEsEWA
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