WWE Monday Night Raw 1/18/16 live results, upgrades, video highlights
The end result was a near-mutiny that compelled Vince McMahon to retool the WrestleMania main event into a triple threat, making the fans happy but ultimately devaluing the significance of the genuine Royal Rumble triumph. If I were not reviewing Raw, I would see something else on TV.
Travis Responds: WWE gave a pretty humdrum go home RAW before one of their Big 4 PPVs. Based on a report by PWMania, the strategy will be to have Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns end the Rumble in a controversial manner, leading to a main event match in next month’s Fastlane pay per view.
Reigns challenged Rusev to a match. I wanted to throw that out there in case you are one of those types who enjoyed the show, and desire your wrestling bloggers to agree with you.
Later in the night, Vince McMahon and Stephanie came out to draw the #1 entrant into the Royal Rumble match, and to nobody’s surprise, each plastic ball in the lottery included the same name – Roman Reigns. Something is moronic and terrible booking, but something I see as an extremely fascinating opportunity. But in addition, it adds the element of practically guaranteeing a fresh winner after the Rumble is over.
I’m also not sure that Brock will be walking out as Champ either. I actually don’t see this going down, but I believe it’d instantly propel the match into one of the most dramatic in Rumble history. He moves on to Brock Lesnar and says he needs to conclude what Brock began last week. They then turned their focus to the fallen Lesnar, and beat the fighting Reigns down.
Del Rio should have pinned Kalisto, when they were so determined to get the Nation get the win. I think they should keep Roman solely in a “Badass” type of approach. The chemistry is great between those two because they’ve had good matches before, so I’m looking forward to this encounter. The match picked up greatly when the luchador eventually got a popular label, but after Kevin Owens hindered and took Ambrose out of the equation, Sheamus and Del Rio picked Kalisto apart to get the W.
All that came to a crashing stop one night after when Del Rio recovered the title at the SmackDown tapings.
On Monday night, some questions about the Royal Rumble were replied, plus a competition formed a major statement in the conclusion of the night. Either way, I Will be watching this Sunday and you need to also.
But it absolutely was the manner that WWE Creative chosen to book Lynch, a cunning opponent who manipulated Flair into accepting her challenge for a Divas title match at Royal Rumble that truly earned her “winner” standing for this week’s show. I hope this leads to something between them and Jericho, because that feud has lots of potential. Becky literally rapped about Ric Flair that was fantastic in the ring.
In the spirit of promoting Total Divas, what this entire match was created to do, they put Paige in the corner of Natalya. The angle between Becky and Charlotte has been great, but because the talent is there, there should be more going on in the division. The spear did a pitfall success, and followed. Chris Jericho served as the special referee. Brie taunts for a little overly long, Natalya takes advantage, and wins with the Sharpshooter.
Big Show Defeats Heath Slater (DUD): The Social Outcasts, the newest coalition of WWE, will be back.
Jey Uso had some great spots of offense, and this was a fairly adequate back-and-forth match.