- To open this week's episode, we had the expected attempt to drown out the CM Punk chants. RAW was in Chicago, and the Punk faithfuls were in fine voice. Stephanie mastered this segment, garnering the heat by saying that everyone in the Allstate Arena were supporters of a quitter, who left without acknowledging any of them. While she was peppered with boos and the chants halted momentarily, Triple H took the reigns and managed to move swiftly on to the Dean Ambrose situation, before Paul Heyman made an appearance to ask The Authority a question. After Seth Rollins' actions at Night of Champions, does Brock Lesnar have an issue with Seth Rollins alone, or with The Authority? Of course, Rollins decided he had better save his hide and came down to assure Heyman that he acted of his own accord, and that he thought Heyman would understand that he was only being an opportunist. If he caused Heyman or Lesnar to feel disrespected, he's truly sorry. After Heyman left, we were treated to our first taste of Ambrose for the night, as he appeared on the titantron and goaded The Authority into coming to find him. As they were making their way up the ramp however, John Cena attacked Rollins, resulting in him escaping through the crowd. Backstage, Triple H sends Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury to go and find Ambrose.
Dolph Ziggler (c) vs The Miz vs Cesaro (Intercontinental Championship)
After a half decent segment to kick us off, we were treated to an equally decent IC title match. Dolph seems to be fighting champion, this being his second defense in 4 days. Finally closure on the feud between Ziggler and Miz, and Cesaro now looks to be entering the Intercontinental title picture after unsuccessfully challenging for the US belt. We kick this one of with Dolph on the wrong side of a beatdown by both guys, getting stomped in the corner, but Miz tries to steal it by rolling up Cesaro, who kicks out at two. Nice spot when Cesaro went for the swings with Ziggler, but Miz delivered a big boot to Cesaro instead, which sent Ziggler flying head first into the top turnbuckle. Miz hits the backbreaker on Dolph, who then reverses the neckbreaker attempt and sends Miz into a tilt-o-whirl backbreaker by Cesaro for two. A string of roll ups between all three competitors ends when Ziggler hits the tornado DDT on both men at the same time, but he can't take advantage. He then hits another double move, only this time delivering a neckbreaker to Cesaro and a DDT to Miz at the same time, he covers Miz and brings up a near fall. After slingshotting Cesaro head first into Miz'... other head, Dolph locks in his own Figure 4, but Cesaro breaks it up with a massive double stomp, which brings about yet another two count. Cesaro looked to have had the match won when he caught Miz with a huge uppercut as he was coming off the top rope, but Ziggler superkicked Cesaro and pinned Miz to retain the title. Brilliant opener. Surely now, Miz and Mizdow will have a falling out and they can feud with each other for a while? Ziggler and Cesaro would be a cracking rivalry, but lets see where it goes.
- Mercury and Noble search backstage for Dean Ambrose, and get hit with a Khali classic one-liner. "Who this Dea Amose?"
- Luke Harper seems to be getting a singles push, as a vignette played showing Bray Wyatt talking about him. He tells us that he fixed Harper, and now he sets him free. Unfortunately, it looks like Erick Rowan will be taking a back seat in the family, or breaking away completely. Will be interesting to see how Harper copes without Wyatt always being in his corner though, he is the most talented wrestler of the three, and can more than hold himself on the mic, so you would wonder they're maybe heading towards a rivalry between Wyatt and Harper? It would certainly make for compelling TV, and would give both guys a break from working with the veterans for a while.
Layla vs Rosa Mendez
This wasn't very good, was it? I get that Rosa obviously has had a hard time of it. Been in and out of rehab for whatever it was and stuff, but she just shouldn't be in a wrestling ring. She's basically being used as a pawn in the Total Divas storyline showing the friction in Natalya and Tyson Kidd's marriage. She was much better served as Primo and Epico's valet, and even then, there wasn't too much to be bothered about. You'd have hardly known their was a match happening here, as the cameras were on Nattie and Tyson at ringside the entire time, with Nattie trying to get Tyson to look away from his phone and actually watch the match. There was a distraction, and Layla picked up the win with a neckbreaker.
- It's always good when a segment begins with a table being pulled out from under the ring. It gets made even better when the man pulling out that table is Dean Ambrose. He sets it up in the middle of the ring and announces that he's going to have a clearance sale. He pulls a load of t-shirts that he stole from the merch stand out a bag and the bidding commences. No one wants a John Cena t-shirt, he'll sell a Sheamus one for a quarter. As he picks up his own shirt, a look of disgust etched on his... "How DARE they call me unstable!". Just at that, Mercury and Noble make their way to the ring, and Ambrose hilariously says "Uh oh... they sent the cruiserweight division out to get me!"... you can't not love that man. After telling them to come into the ring and get Rollins' briefcase back, they go backstage and Ambrose begins scattering the shirts over the crowd, before NnM return with Rollins and a batch of security guys, who Ambrose queries if they were real security, because he was sure they were Rosebuds last week. Ambrose retreats, allowing Rollins to go get his case back, but it was a trap, as Rollins opened the case to get squirted with green shit, as Ambrose watched on, like this...
... Backstage, Hunter makes Orton and Kane fight young Seth's battles yet again, and puts them in a tag match against Ambrose and John Cena in the main event. It's implied there's a vibrator in the MITB briefcase. Rollins insists that it's an electric razor, but as JBL stated "He has a beard...".
Mark Henry vs Bo Dallas
After an unsuccessful rivalry against Rusev, it was only before too long that the World's Strongest Man would have a heel turn. On the end of this heel turn was Bo Dallas. It didn't happen during the match though, as we kicked off with Henry making an apology to the fans for his performances, only yo be interrupted by Bo Dallas, who encourages him to BO-lieve. Henry's head wasn't in the right place, and after a mainly dominant performance, he took his eye off the ball, and Dallas capitalized, hitting the running Bo-dog to pick up the win. During a backstage interview, Dallas is heavily assaulted by Henry, who relentlessly beat him up and launched a huge crate at him. You'd imagine this was the heel turn, as he did hint at it on Main Event. It's probably what he needs at the moment.
Brie Bella vs Cameron & Eva Marie
Two points to make here...
1 - Brie's new music is an assault on the senses.
2 - There could not be a worse wrestling tag team in the world than a team composed of Cameron and Eva Marie.
Nikki cuts a crappy promo beforehand, and introduces Team "Girl Bye". Nope. Of course, Brie overcomes the odds, and rolls Cameron up for the win. Yes chants after that. Oh great. NEXT.
Slater Gator w/The Gator vs Los Matadores w/El Torito
On the contrary to the last match, this contained some cracking music. Slater Gator's theme is cracking man. They brought their own Gator with them as well, who proved to be a worthy adversary to El Torito. Adam Rose and the bunny were on commentary for this match as well, and they need to be more often. Rose and JBL are perfect for bouncing off one another. The match starts off with big Titus taking control, hitting a couple of backbreakers, before Slater tagged himself in. The matadors then start to take control, but just as one of them went to the top rope, O'Neil put the Gator in the ring, and El Torito came in for a face off. The distraction allowed Slater to roll up the matador and seal the victory. Afterwards, Titus attacked Torito, and then the Gator put him in the gator roll. Off a Rose distraction, the matadors hit their finisher on Slater, before the bunny climbed up top and delivered a frog splash.
- Lana and Rusev come out for a few words. Lana calls the Big Show cowardly for how he knocked out Rusev on Smackdown, claiming that he attacked him from behind. Big Show came out to show us exactly what happened, Rusev got himself disqualified and Show knocked him out afterwards. Looking for a fight, Show made his way to the ring, but Rusev ran for it. After Show pulled down the Russian flag, Rusev stormed the ring a couple of times but was overpowered by Show. WWE have since had to issue an apology for letting the flag be ripped down. Politics eh.
- John Cena gets interviewed backstage. and gets interrupted by Ambrose, who tells him that after the tag not even Cena himself takes food off his table.
AJ Lee vs Alicia Fox
Know the best way to stop a crowd chanting for a hometown hero that the company would rather not hear mentioned again? Send his wife out. Works every time. The match didn't last long though, as AJ tried to pull Paige into the ring, only to be scissor kicked in the spine by Alicia, who picked up the win. Afterwards, Paige hit her with a Rampaige and posed with the Divas title.
Sheamus vs Damien Mizdow
By order of the Authority, this match was made. Triple H didn't take too kindly to Miz demanding a one-on-one rematch for the IC title, so punished his stunt double with a match against the US champ. As you'd expect, Sheamus started off strong, but Mizdow rallied, hitting Miz' signature low DDT for two. Sheamus hits the ten beats, before Miz came from commentary to see if his stunt double was okay, only to have Mizdow thrown at him. Sheamus rolls Mizdow back in the ring and hits a Brogue Kick for the win. Still nothing making Sheamus seem more interesting. After the cracker he had against Cesaro at Night of Champions, how is he still the most irrelevant US champ in history?
- Hulk Hogan came out to take about WWE's partnership with Susan G. Komen. He was out for a very, very, very long time.
Dean Ambrose & John Cena vs Kane & Randy Orton
This was really a match of two people. Where Cena is still looking great in the ring as of late and Kane is still in fine shape, Ambrose and Orton killed this match and the aftermath of it. The match did last a bit longer that what was required, especially when there was going to be a no-finish anyway. Orton dominated Cena for the most part, but you just knew that when the hot-tag came, it would be epic. Right on cue, Cena made the separation from Orton, sending him over the top rope, and the king of the hot-tag delivered. In came Ambrose, taking Kane off the apron, before launching an assault on Orton with a huge crossbody. He clotheslined Orton over the top rope and then went to diving. Kane thought it wise to break his flow, so got took out first, then Orton afterwards receiving the suicide dive. Back in the ring, Orton kicks Ambrose in the gut, but he bounces off the ropes with that cracking lariat. Dirty Deeds time, as it looked as though the Lunatic Fringe was beating Orton clean, but it wasn't to be as Rollins interfered again and brought about the DQ. After Cena and Ambrose arguing over who got Rollins, Randy Orton slid in and delivered an RKO to each of them, before Rollins ended the show with a couple of Curb Stomps.
All in all, it was a really good RAW this week, the highlights being an excess amount of Dean Ambrose, Luke Harper getting some singles momentum in the works, and the Intercontinental Championship triple threat match. The tension seems to be building within The Authority, as Orton is becoming less and less pleased with having to put out the fires that Seth Rollins starts. This could potentially lead to a face turn in the near future, which won't do him a bit of harm. Good foundations set for Hell in a Cell and here's hoping the momentum stays up!