Kane popped in to say hello
After Stephanie McMahon called Daniel Bryan and his wife Brie Bella out to apologise for Kane’s actions last week on RAW, claiming that she hadn’t intended for Kane to throw him around the arena like a bearded ragdoll, Bryan inevitably rejected her apology before marching down to the ramp to accompany his wife at ringside during her Divas Championship match with Paige. The match, which also marked Paige’s first title defense, was cut short when Kane’s music and pyro hit, before Kane emerged from underneath the ring and tried to drag Brie down there with him.
I’ve always loved these “Kane/Undertaker appears from beneath the ring” segments because they never fail to look wonderfully ridiculous, and WWE can use as much red lighting as they want, because this still looked damned ridiculous. The Kane/Daniel Bryan feud has been built up reasonably well, and their match at Extreme Rules should be a good one. I’m still a little disappointed that D-Bry’s first title defense will essentially be a mid-card match (I imagine Evolution vs. The Shield will close out the PPV, with Cena/Bray Wyatt the next most hotly anticipated match), but the build-up has been quite solid. Also, Brie Bella deserves brownie points for calling Stephanie McMahon a bitch with a totally unexpected and guttural snarl.
Bad News Barrett is the new Intercontinental #1 contender
Considering WWE fans spent many years being endlessly nostalgic and ignoring practically every “new wave” of WWE Superstars the company tried to push, it’s heartening to see the likes of Bad News Barrett, Cesaro and The Shield routinely getting the loudest responses of each show.
Bad News Barrett was up against perennial fan favourite Rob Van Dam in this week’s RAW, and the majority of the crowd elected to cheer for him over RVD. After Cesaro exited the Intercontinental tournament, we all knew that “BNB” was going to win it and that RVD would go on to insert himself into the feud between Cesaro and Swagger, and after run-ins from both Paul Heyman’s client and the Real American, everything played out as you’d expect. Barrett lifted his knees when RVD went for the Frog Splash after Cesaro had provided a minor distracted, and he used that awful Bullhammer move to pick up the win.
Barrett will now likely go on to win the Intercontinental title from Big E at Extreme Rules and bring the credibility to the title that we had previously thought was going to come from Langston’s title run.
Ric Flair cashed in a paycheck
In one of the weirdest RAW segments in recent memory, Ric Flair returned prior to Roman Reigns and Randy Orton’s singles match for no particular reason whatsoever. Triple H had already announced on Twitter that the Nature Boy would be returning to RAW this week, so many assumed that he’d rejoin Evolution, or at least insert himself into this feud in some way. However, what instead happened was that a possibly drunk Flair rambled for a couple of minutes about “greatness” before… err… endorsing The Shield. Or something. I’m not entirely sure what he was getting at, and it seemed that neither did Evolution, The Shield nor the commentators. Whatever the ACTUAL reason was for bringing Flair out (I’ve got to assume that Flair didn’t follow the script, because there’s no way that this segment was planned to go over in the way that it did) at least he earned an easy paycheck.
Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns ended predictably
It wouldn’t be an episode of RAW if it didn’t finish with a match spoiled by outside interference, and Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton lived up to expectations.
Aside from the usual spots (and Reigns botching Orton’s middle-rope DDT) there was nothing notable about the match prior to the remaining members of The Shield/Evolution turning it into an all-out brawl, with The Shield eventually getting the upper hand going into Extreme Rules. While this stable war certainly doesn’t have the same appeal as The Shield vs. The Wyatt’s, it should still make for a good match which, considering that it involves The Shield, shouldn’t need to be said, really.
