Holiday’s over... back to work!
The Headliner
Two signs point to it being a very good night for Sasha Banks.
As she herself learned at Hell in a Cell, WWE loves to have people lose in their hometown. Also on their birthdays, but that’s not relevant to tonight’s Women’s championship match. Being in “Flair Country” - and the city from which the current titleholder took her kayfabe name - doesn’t bode well for Charlotte.
There’s also the fact that when the Boss faces the Queen with gold at stake, the woman defending the title doesn’t have a very good record. And it’s not exactly a small sample size. Banks vs. Flair is a feud which has basically spanned their entire year-and-a-half as main roster talents, all but one of Charlotte’s reigns started with a win over Sasha, and both the Boss’ began by beating the Nature Girl.
What isn’t going in Sasha’s favor? WWE needs to break that pattern at some point. We’ll find out if Charlotte (the city, not the wrestler) is where they decide to finally move Ms. Flair on to a new challenger... or if they’ll just have her exercise her rematch clause (again) for Roadblock in December.
The title scene
Being barred from ringside didn’t stop Chris Jericho from putting on some stuff he found laying around the locker room and attacking Seth Rollins to make sure his best friend Kevin Owens remained the Universal champ. The Architect will likely have something to say about that... will General Manager Mick Foley?
Cesaro & Sheamus couldn’t do it last week, when some well-timed trombone-terference kept the Tag Team titles on the New Day for another week. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows can relate, because they haven’t been able to end Xavier Woods, Big E & Kofi Kingston’s quest to become the greatest tag champs of all time on multiple occassions in the past. But they’re not joking around any more, so surely they’ll get the job done in tonight’s other title bout, right?
United States champion Roman Reigns is rumored to be facing Owens for his belt on the next pay-per-view (PPV)... so maybe that’s why he hasn’t had a new challenger since beating Rusev at Hell in a Cell? JeriKO set the groundwork for a possible Roadblack bout when they blamed the big dog for Team Raw’s Survivor Series loss last week.
The division gets its own show tomorrow night, and that’s where Brian Kendrick will defend his Cruiserweight belt. But Rich Swann earned his #1 contender status with a win last Monday night, so we’ll keep watching how WWE pushes the 205 Live stars across two shows... the same way one would rubberneck a car crash, most likely, but watching nonetheless.
Other stuff to keep an eye on:
- Vince McMahon loves a good d*** joke, so Enzo Amore & Big Cass are now feuding with Rusev. Because the Bulgarian Brute’s ego was bruised when Lana was impressed by naked Enzo. No, I’m not making that up.
- Fresh off his big win over Brock Lesnar, Goldberg announced he’ll be in the Royal Rumble. Now don’t expect to see him until 2017.
- Commissioner Stephanie McMahon hates Sami Zayn, so she had Braun Strowman beat him up real bad last week. Foley invoked the mercy rule to stop the match under. This is all probably leading somewhere, unless it isn’t.
- For more on things that are leading somewhere unless they aren’t... see Cesaro’s Raw career.
Three weeks until Roadblock!
What will you be looking for on Raw tonight?