WWE Raw preview (Aug. 16, 2021): Omos isn’t ready for this

Raw airs tonight (Aug. 16) with a live show from the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. This is the final Raw episode during the five week build towards SummerSlam 2021 on August 21.

Omos isn’t ready for this

Last week’s episode of Raw was all about Randy Orton’s return from hiatus and his continuing partnership with Matt Riddle. The episode ended with an RKO on Riddle in the middle of the ring, but the commentators played it up like that was a good thing for their relationship.

After beating AJ Styles last week, Orton now has to get in the ring with Omos tonight. It’s been well established by now in kayfabe that Omos is a much better wrestler than AJ, so this will be a more difficult challenge for the Viper to overcome. The problem is that, outside of kayfabe, Omos simply isn’t ready for televised singles match in WWE because his selling is terrible. He can get away with that glaring weakness in tag team matches where Styles is there to take the beatings. He can also get away with that weakness in singles matches that are lopsided squashes in his favor.

Unlike Riddle, though, Orton is unlikely to just be rag-dolled around the ring like a jabroni for the entirety of a singles match to put over Omos. Randy’s gonna have to get his shit in, so to speak, because he’s one of the top stars on Raw. So we’ll see how WWE tries to make this work. No matter how they do it, it’s best to keep this match very short.

If Randy can find a way to take down Omos, that should give RK-BRO the inside track to a Raw tag team championship match at SummerSlam.

The rest of the title scene

WWE loves contract signings and face-to-face confrontations. We’ll get the latter segment tonight when Goldberg and Bobby Lashley meet in the ring and put their faces very close to each other one final time before their match for the WWE championship at SummerSlam. If Goldberg makes the mistake of bringing his son back to Raw tonight, the heels will likely make him regret it.

Charlotte Flair interfered in last week’s non-title match between Nikki A.S.H. and Rhea Ripley. It wouldn’t be Raw without a rematch, so perhaps Nikki and Rhea will go at it one more time before these three women battle over the Raw women’s championship at SummerSlam. If Rhea Ripley cuts another promo tonight, hopefully WWE will give her a script that contains words and phrases a person might actually say before a fight, unlike last week’s nonsense about balancing the light and the dark.

Natalya is injured and the Women’s tag team champions don’t really have any challengers on Raw. This championship is not relevant for the SummerSlam card, so Tamina might not appear on Raw tonight, unless Charlotte needs to beat someone not named Shayna Baszler as a tune up for SummerSlam.

Sheamus better come up with a new plan for dealing with Damian Priest. The Archer of Infamy is challenging the Celtic Warrior for the United States championship at SummerSlam, and he’ll beat John Morrison every single week on Raw if that’s what it takes to keep his momentum going.

Reggie is very good at doing back flips to escape from jobbers who are chasing after his 24/7 championship.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

- Babyface Drew McIntyre plans to murder Jinder Mahal at SummerSlam by impaling his former buddy with a giant flame-generating sword named Angela. Before he can do that, though, he has a chance tonight to do the same thing to Mahal’s henchmen (Veer & Shanky) in a handicap match.

- Karrion Kross got his win back on Jeff Hardy last week, bringing his record on Raw up to 2-2. Now that the unstoppable NXT champion has gone 50/50 with both Jeff Hardy and Keith Lee on Raw, WWE will probably find another babyface for him to trade wins with over the next two weeks. Jaxson Ryker, perhaps?

- Mansoor and Mustafa Ali have had some bumps in the road the last two weeks in the ring, but they at least seem to be building up trust in each other.

- It looks like The Miz doesn’t need his wheelchair anymore. Does that mean it’s time for John Morrison to return to being a supporting player for their act?

- Doudrop was pinned by Alexa Bliss last week after being distracted by a stupid doll blinking its eye. What other tricks do Alexa and Lilly have planned for derailing the Eva-lution?

- It appears that Elias is being repackaged after last week’s video where he threw his guitar into a fire and said Elias is dead.

What will you be looking for on Raw tonight?