14th September Edition Of The Monday Night Raw & Wrestling News

This week’s Raw was ‘in your face’! What could that new theme gimmick possibly entail? Apparently, a little thunder effect to open the Thunderdome. And Michael Cole and Dolph Ziggler on commentary while Tom Phillips and Samoa Joe are away. And there it is, Ziggler on commentary. WWE have officially run out of ideas for him. Getting RIGHT IN YOUR FACE, Drew McIntyre challenged Randy Orton to an Ambulance match at clash of champions, and did his own bad Photoshop gag with his Claymore victims in hospital. This brought out definitely not an authority figure Adam Pearce to say if Randy can’t make it for clash of champions, Keith Lee will face Drew for the WWE Championship instead. This sowed some very effective tension seeds between the biggest of best friends to build their main event. Not waiting for clash of champions - where this match would actually make sense.

SmackDown tag team champions The Artists took on Raw tag team champions the Street Profits as part of the quarterly cross-brand invitational - what are the rules? - in a frantic tag that started with the final sequence and stayed there for 5 minutes. There were some fantastic spots, like Ford being powerbombed on the barricade, and all the uppercuts from Cesaro. But ultimately this was just a throwaway 5 minute filler with no larger story.

Cedric Alexander and Apollo Crews cut some fierce back and forth promos on each other - Apollo wasn’t even smiling - for Cedric to win a grudge match clean against Ricochet, who sold the Lumbar Check with all the flips. The Hurt Business didn’t have time to celebrate though, as faction of chaos Retribution ran their logo graphics on the Thunderdome and cut another generic promo. I think we’ve all been done with Retribution since, well, they debuted - but this episode fantastically used them to build up the Hurt Business.

MVP offered Pearce their services backstage, which paid off in an awesome way after the main event.

Asuka and Mickie James had a really decent back and forth match for the Raw women’s title, that was unfortunately cut short when the referee suddenly called Mickie submitting when she was actually reversing the Asuka Lock. Going by Mick Foley’s Twitter, James appears to have suffered a dislocated shoulder.

She was rushed out as soon as the bell rang for Zelina Vega to announce her breakaway from Andrade and Angel Garza, to be Asuka’s next title challenger.

Vega is a great personality, and it’s cool she’s getting to do more beyond her manager role. I’m just scared for Andrade and Garza’s pushes now they’re all split up.

Speaking of being scared for people’s pushes, Erik likely won’t stand a chance with Ivar currently out injured. He tapped to Bobby Lashley in two minutes, in a match that weirdly wasn’t on Raw Underground. Maybe it’s because they had someone else in store.

Baaaaaaaaaald Strowman. Look friends - Shane’s got a new toy for his secret scuffle club. Strowman beat up Ziggler, who was replaced by MVP on commentary by that point, and then Riddick Moss, and then Titus O’Neil was all ready to go against him, and then he got immediately killed too. I thought we might be getting Shane himself against Braun for a moment, but Yabba-Dabba-Kato squared up to him instead, which we’ll be getting next week. I want Raw Underground to stop now.

Seth Rollins vs Dominik in a steel cage, however, was much better. Their match felt like a genuinely big deal, with Raw effectively building it with multiple backstage segments. Seth shouted at Buddy to keep away, the Mysterio family put on a united front, and R-Truth cut a promo on a kit kat.

Sticking to the feud’s theme so far, the cage match started with loads of kendo shots and didn’t really let up, with superplexes off the top rope into Falcon Arrows, Buddy trying to interfere, but getting pushed off the top of the cage, and Seth winning with two Stomps as the Mysterio family helplessly watched on through the steel. It was another brilliant performance by Dominik, who was made to look even better by Rollins and a fast-paced, quick match with plenty of high spot smoke and mirrors. Dominik genuinely has something, and it’s incredibly refreshing to see actually young talent on Raw - as opposed to people who feel new, but are actually 35 because they spent 9 years in NXT. But Dominik might not be the only Mysterio family member they have plans for. Come on Angie! Seth beat up Buddy after the match for going against his command to stay backstage, and then the camera lingered on Rey’s daughter Aalyah briefly tending to him. Could this fuel a babyface turn for Buddy? Or perhaps even start Aalyah’s conversion to Seth’s dark side? Whatever it is, I’m interested.

Aleister Black attacked Kevin Owens before the bell, but lost to stunner when the lights flickered - which is ironically a blackout. I don’t know where do you go with this feud now after Owens won so quickly with a bad knee.

Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax were quite funny on commentary to watch their number 1 contenders The Riott Squad beat Lana and Natalya. Jax put Lana through the announcer’s table afterwards, brought to you by Bang Energy.

And the main event saw Keith Lee take on Drew McIntyre, after the two’s tension boiled over earlier on into a backstage brawl. It gave Keith a new, more pissed off attitude, and a sexy plunging neckline in his latest gear switch-up, creating a physical back-and-forth match. But unfortunately, WWE have made it difficult to invest in Keith Lee matches, because they don’t know how to book him on TV. Of his 5 Raw matches so far, he’s lost twice to Orton via DQ, lost once to Orton in a triple threat, and now, here, had a no contest against Drew when Retribution attacked. It’s frustrating, but in isolation the show’s finish was actually very exciting. Paying off their protection promise to Pearce earlier on, the Hurt Business ran down to fight off the invading faction in an awesome heels turn badass babyfaces spot, and Drew and Lee hit spectacular stereo dives over the top rope taking out everyone to go off the show. Despite having about 30 people, Retribution were only really there to make the main roster wrestlers look good - being handily beaten by just six guys. They’re like the Chitauri jobbing to the Avengers.

What did you think of the Monday night raw show? Let us know in the comments. For long term booking, this was mostly a nonsense, hot shotted panic episode. But I must admit, I was very sports entertained. The in-ring action was fast-paced and fun. The Hurt Business looked awesome. And Dominik continues to impress.

Wrestling News

Following WWE's mass deliveries nine years prior back in April, we've seen numerous previous stars presentation or profit for Impact and AEW. What's more, generally going after… Mafia film impacts. Yet, in the most recent month, some WWE ability have assumed control over the choice. Notwithstanding the organization delivering 60 behind the stage and office staff a week ago, others needed to choose their own fate - with both Renee Young and Mauro Ranallo purportedly requesting to leave in August. Furthermore, as per the entirely solid Wrestle News, we haven't seen the remainder of WWE ability picking their own future. Assuming Wrestle News intended to compose re-sign there and not leave. As that would be an epically vexing tweet. Be that as it may, who might it be able to be? Who? Who? Who? Theory amania has been going crazy on the Twitter, with the top names coming out as Mustafa Ali, Adam Cole and Cesaro. Who do you think will leave WWE once their agreement lapses? However, while one star appears to be determined to leaving, another is evidently set for large things in the organization. It's the ideal opportunity for the hit news portion of 2020. Who's WWE high on behind the stage? It's Dominik Mysterio. They're clearly into Dominik Mysterio. 

Dominik has had an aggregate of 6 matches in WWE since his introduction SummerSlam session against Seth Rollins. Be that as it may, even in this short residency, Wrestling News is detailing WWE authorities consider Dominik in the top 25%, or one of the main 3 or 4 babyfaces on Raw, apparently following Drew McIntyre, and Keith Lee. In view of his great matches up until now, the report proceeds to state that he will keep on being pushed, which is sponsored up by the new Day Of narrative encompassing the current year's SummerSlam zeroing in on him. In spite of the fact that Ricochet got similar treatment for his Brock Lesnar squash at Saudi Arabia in February… so we'll see. In a decent sign, however, the narrative has a clasp of Dominik getting back to gorilla position after his Rollins coordinate, where Vince McMahon himself saluted Dom on a fruitful match and gave him an embrace - social separating Vince! 'That sort of response' being the falsely siphoned in ThunderDome swarm. Vince knows they're not so much there, rig-I allow it three weeks. It's extensively preferable chances over WWE's Raw-restrictive group Retribution - who've had a greater amount of their last line-up uncovered. 

John Pollock is detailing WWE's inner list has Dominik Dijakovic, Mia Yim, Mercedes Martinez, Shane Thorne and Dio Maddin as the individuals from Retribution. Supporting this, Ryan Satin tweeted an image from their intrusion the previous evening, which appears to show Dio Maddin in a genuinely incapable veil. There's no word on who the other 30 individuals are.