A bad start to the night for the limousine of one Vincent Kennedy McMahon after he arrives at the arena.
The FedEx Forum in Memphis, TN is home to this week’s broadcast of Monday Night Raw on 1/14/19.
Braun Strowman, the “Monster Among Men” is cutting a promo on his forthcoming title match with Brock Lesnar. He besmirches the name of former Acting Raw GM, Baron Corbin, who respond by saying Strowman can’t win the big one against Universal Champion, Brock Lesnar.
Strowman gives chase and Elias, tells us via song, that Strowman has taken refuge in the limo. Strowman assaults the driver side mirror and then he uses a pipe to destroy the back window and he rips the door off.
Mr. McMahon arrives and he isn’t pleased, especially since at the start of the show, he had his driver wipe off scuffs with his own jacket. There will surely be hell to pay for Strowman later. In the process, Corbin scurried away. Welcome to Raw, folks!
We’re back from a break and Mr. McMahon tells Strowman he’s in for 100,000 dollars. Strowman says that piece of crap car isn’t worth it. Mr. McMahon removes Strowman from the Universal Title match as a result of such! Wow! Strowman responds as only Strowman can, and he dumps the limo. I suppose Mr. McMahon better call his “guy” and arrange for alternate transportation home.
Sasha Banks and Ronda Rousey defeat Tamina and Nia Jax via submission after a Banks Statement on Tamina.
This advertised match was nice and early in the broadcast and got the crowd going right away. The strange thing here is that the Women’s champion wasn’t very heavily featured outside of an arm bar spot where Tamina was pulled out of the ring.
Banks played the face in peril role until the very end where she countered Tamina’s offense into her patented submission and tapped her out.
After the match, Rousey and Banks had an exchange where Banks said she wasn’t scared of Rousey and Rousey called her a “loser” of sorts. Rousey was quick to apologize and even gave chase as Banks was heading up the ramp. Rousey has gone on record with the respect she has for Banks and this adds an element to their forthcoming title match.
There is a line outside Mr. McMahon’s door where Dasha Fuentes is getting comments from a number of talents. We even see Ec3 standing there with a smile on his face. He says nothing and leaves.
We do see Memphis legend and Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler come out of the office and that gets a massive pop. He’ll be calling the Men’s Royal Rumble after signing a new contract this week.
The Revival is out and they lambaste Lucha House Party for standing idly by and watching them get screwed out of the titles last week.
The Revival defeat Lucha House Party via pin fall after a DDT from Dawson on Gran Metallik.
High flying offense on display as always, and the Revival come away with the victory using the same nefarious tactics that have worked against them in recent weeks. Dawson hits a beautiful DDT on Metallik and Metallik gets his foot on the ropes, but Wilder removes it as the hand goes down for three. The Revival with a victory here tonight.
Mr. McMahon is headed to the ring next to talk about the Universal Title match. He ignored Dasha’s plea for a comment.
Mr. McMahon doesn’t even get started before he is interrupted by “Big Match John”, John Cena himself! Cena talks about stars leaving Vince and how he stuck around and he walks that opportunity because he has ruthless aggression. A great throwback there to his debut against Kurt Angle. This leads to Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin and Finn Balor coming out to throw their hats in the ring. It leads to a brawl and McIntyre stands tall after Claymore Kick’s to everyone.
We get a fatal fourway match booked for later in the evening.
Jinder Mahal kisses up to Mr. McMahon backstage, saying he wanted in, but he was tending to Sunil Singh after the vicious attack from Strowman earlier. It leads to Mr. McMahon booking him against Balor and the winner of that match gets into the match. Mr. McMahon and Balor had a great exchange in the segment earlier where Balor challenged how Mr. McMahon viewed him and his “size”. It was great.
Bayley/Natalya/Nikki Cross defeat The Riott Squad via pin fall after a top rope elbow from Bayley on Liv Morgan.
We found out before the break that Bayley and Nattie would have a mystery partner at their side. It screamed Ember Moon, but Nikki Cross showed up instead to a massive reaction! We found out that all the NXT stars would be appearing on both shows for folks to familiarize themselves with them.
Cross was excellent. She got in her signature Fit Finlay apron spot where she beat the holy heck out of Ruby Riott and the faces shined in front of a hot crowd. The match continued and eventually, Bayley got the tag and put this one away following her elbow drop on a prone Liv Morgan.
Bayley’s reputation is slowly being repaired as she has been winning matches a lot since the speech frm the McMahon/Helmsley regime several weeks back. Good for them.
Finn Balor is headed to the ring for his match against Jinder Mahal, and we see Dana Brooke and others chatting with NXT star Lacey Evans. Balor raises an eyebrow and then the jacket before heading to the ring. Sadly, we won’t be seeing Lars Sullivan I would imagine after he missed last week’s and several other shows while dealing with a personal issue. Hope he gets things figured out.
Finn Balor defeats Jinder Mahal via pin fall with Coup De Grace.
Balor was attacked before the match by Mahal and Suneel Singh, but he overcame the odds as expected to get into the match later this evening. They are really focusing on Balor’s resilience and he surely got a great many more eyes on his talent after an extraordinary match with Jodan Devlin at NXT: Takeover UK this past week.
We’ll see if they pull the trigger later. Even if he loses to Lesnar, it will continue to raise his stock. The fans love him, he’s great in the ring, make the call.
Bobby Lashley, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose will do business next for the IC Title in a triple threat match. Lio Rush cuts a promo about “The Almighty” Bobby Lashley and what he plans to do next. Lashley looks primed and ready for that match.
Bobby Lashley w/ Lio Rush defeats Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins to win the Intercontinental Title after a spear on Ambrose.
You saw that headline right. It seems as if they are moving both Rollins and Ambrose onto bigger and better things as Lashley finally gets a chance to shine with singles gold around his waist.
Lio Rush was instrumental in this one to say the least. It was given a very good amount of time and the crowd was eager to see the end result. Ambrose and Rollins used double team efforts on Lashley several times throughout the match.
The end came after Rollins kipped up and went for a high impact maneuver, but Rush pulled down the ropes causing him to spill to the outside. A distracted Ambrose turned and ate a spear and as a result, “The Almighty” Bobby Lashley is your new Intercontinental Champion.
“A Moment Of Bliss” was a mess of sorts. They promised us Paul Heyman, but as a fellow scrum colleague stated, they basically took the first two minutes of this to showcase the new Women’s tag team titles, which are beautiful, but should have been hyped over the coming weeks.
We find out that three teams from Raw and three teams from Smackdown will compete in the Elimination Chamber and the winners will be the first ever tag team champions.
“The Advocate” then introduces himself and plugs Brock Lesnar’s title defense and he begins talking about the competitors involved in tonight’s match. When he gets to Baron Corbin, we get a random appearance atop the ramp from Otis “Dozer” Dozavic, who comes out rambling incoherently and you can almost hear the toilet flushing on this promising tandem’s debut.
That legitimately ended the segment in the most awkward fashion since last week’s Braun Strowman/Paul Heyman debacle. Either way, the main event is next and should be great.
Finn Balor defeats John Cena/Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre via pin fall to win a Universal Title shot after a Coup De Grace on Cena.
You read that right once again. “Big Match John” came back to do the favors for one of the most underrated talents on the roster. Corbin and McIntyre had their moments to shine and McIntyre will almost certainly hold championship gold this year.
After overcoming the odds against Mahal earlier, Balor looked poised to lose after an Attitude Adjustment off the top nearly did him in. Baron Corbin dumped Cena, but only got a two count. McIntyre and Corbin were eventually ousted from the match, and Cena found himself in the “drop zone” after a Claymore Kick. Balor scrambled up top and hit his finish. Three count and a victory!
After the match, and to end the show, Cena put Balor over huge and said Mr. McMahon didn’t believe in him, the fans did and now he does. That was good for business and a good plug from a treasured veteran. A great way to end a very good show tonight, no complaints here.
