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WWE Monday Night Raw comes waltzing back into our lives tonight (Aug. 21, 2023) from the Centre Videotron in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, featuring all the latest build to the upcoming Payback Premium Live Event scheduled for early next month in Pittsburgh.
Advertised for tonight: GUNTHER puts his Intercontinental championship on the line against Chad Gable after the latter earned an opportunity via winning a Fatal 4-Way match two weeks ago. Elsewhere, Shinsuke Nakamura will reveal what he whispered to Seth Rollins last week, the new team of Drew McIntyre & Matt Riddle will take on The New Day, and a whole lot more.
Come right back here at 8 pm ET when the Raw live blog will kick off once the show starts on USA Network. It will be below this line here. Reminder: GIFs and pics allowed, but no links to illegal streams, please.
WWE RAW RESULTS AND LIVE BLOG FOR AUG. 21
Your thoughts are compromising, self-centered, patronizing. Your image supersedes your soul, but me? I’m just here to liveblog this here pro wrestling show for you, folks.
The show opens with a recap of Judgment Day business of late.
Sami Zayn makes his entrance.to the thunderous cheers of the Quebecois crowd.
He paces around the ring, mic in hand, soaking up the love from the crowd and getting increasingly agitated about it before finally welcoming the crowd in French.
Enter the Judgment Day.
They surround the ring and Sami asks them a question in French and then asking if they really thought he’d come here, of all places, alone?
Enter Kevin Owens!
He cuts a swath through the Judgment Day, finishing up with a Stunner on Damian Priest! Owens gets on the mic and says it’s been too long since he had a match on Raw, so he books himself and Sami in a tag match against any two of the Judgment Day! He punctuates with a line of dialogue in French!
New Day make their entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get a media hype reel for WrestleMania XL ticket sales.
Drew McIntyre & Matt Riddle vs. New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)
Woods and Riddle to start, back and forth striking as Woods jaws at him about not being a real tag team and cuts him off to tag Kingston in. Back suplex into a springboard splash, only two! Matt gets away, he hugs McIntyre, Drew hugs back and German suplexes him over the ropes and into the New Day on the floor!
Back from commercial, Kingston has a keylock in on Riddle, he fights to his feet, side Russian legsweep, snapmare, tag to Woods, Penalty Kick, Vader Bomb, Xavier catches a kick, off the ropes, sliding reverse STO, Kofi tags in, diving splash... NOPE! Low crossbody trips Matt up, Kingston up top, diving crossbody... KNEE COUNTERS!
Woods in, jockeying for position, Riddle hits the avalanche fisherman buster! Fighting free for the tag, Erik Viking Raiders shows up and pulls Drew off the apron, Kofi tags in...
New Day win by pinfall with Trouble in Paradise from Kofi Kingston on Matt Riddle.
Post-match, Viking Raiders hit the ring and wipe New Day out for good measure!
Finn Balor and JD McDonagh are interviewed backstage.
JD says he’s been friends with Balor forever and he only hopes to make Judgment Day stronger, and Finn points out that McDonagh helped lay Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn out.
Rhea Ripley and Dominik Mysterio roll up to talk to Finn about who’s going to team against Kev and Sami and she forces JD to stay back, citing Judgment Day business.
And so we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get a hype reel for Shayna Baszler.
We get footage from earlier today of GUNTHER cutting a promo about how the world will see his glory tonight.
Chad Gable is interviewed in Gorilla but Otis Dozovic steps in and says Chad brought him up at the lowest part of his career, but tonight is all about Gable. Maxxine Dupri takes a turn putting him over.
Gable makes his entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get a media hype reel for John Cena’s announced return to SmackDown on August 1.
Chad Gable vs. GUNTHER (c) (WWE Intercontinental Championship)
Circling, collar and elbow, GUNTHER backs him into the corner, Gable sidesteps and chops him! Back to the lockup, Ring General with a wristlock, dropping a knee across the elbow and applying a kneeling armbar. Big judo throw, back to the wristlock, Chad gets a front chancery to reverse and GUNTHER throws him out of the ring entirely and we go to break!
Back from commercial, Gable beats a countout, butterfly slam from the champion... NOPE! Chad with a boot in the corner, cross armbar in the ropes counters a chop! Off the top, GUNTHER cuts him out of midair and drops him with a series of lariats... SO CLOSE!
Gojira Clutch in the middle of the ring, Gable flagging but not failing, GUNTHER sinks it in but he’s able to roll to his knees! Posting to his feet, Chad laying in forearms, duck a lariat, back suplex counters a sleeper! German suplex blocked, knee lift, Gable catches a second and hits a dragon screw into the ankle lock!
Ring General fights out, double leg from the challenger into paintbrushing slaps, German suplex into the bridge... SO CLOSE! GUNTHER BLASTS HIM OFF THE TOP AND INTO THE BARRICADE! Referee Rod Zapata counting, GUNTHER goes after him and chops him against the barrier!
Chad is able to throw him into the post and suplexes him over the barricade into the timekeeper’s area and slides back in the ring...
Chad Gable wins by count-out.
We go backstage where Judgment Day are arguing over who should face Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
Dominik Mysterio is milquetoast and refuses to come down on whether it should be him and Finn Balor or Damian Priest and Finn. Rhea Ripley is tired of it and tells them they have to make a decision before she comes back or she’ll make it for them.
We see Cody Rhodes chatting with Byron Saxton backstage and we go to break.
Back from commercial, GUNTHER is yelling at Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci in German for some reason.
Kaiser says he’s gonna make this right and asks Vinci what he’s doing.
Cody Rhodes is interviewed by Byron Saxton.
He asks what’s wrong with JD McDonagh, saying his head’s so big he looks like a Funco Pop and says where they are isn’t working and he wants to go for a walk to see some friends.
He leads Saxton through the halls and out of Gorilla to the stage, to the adoration of Quebec, and he asks what they want to talk about, in French. He talks about the numbers game and says if there’s one place where the Judgment Day’s numbers don’t matter, it’s down the road from where Kev and Sami grew up.
He wants the Judgment Day to hear them and asks if they’ll be in Zayn and Owens’ corner tonight, and says they won’t be alone because there’s no love lost between he and the Judgment Day.
We get a promo video from Shinsuke Nakamura about what he whispered to Seth Rollins.
He says Seth acts like he has it all but he knows his weakness and told him he knows about his back, claiming his back is broken and has been for many years and he lives in pain from it. He and Rollins aren’t so different, and he has a void as well, and they live by a code.
He talks about Seth’s back tattoo and claims the code is written there, and tells him to watch his back.
Rhea Ripley makes her entrance and we go to break.
Candice LeRae vs. Rhea Ripley
LeRae with a schoolboy early, trading strikes, blocking Riptide, Ripley with a goozle into a wheelbarrow lift, elevated inverted cloverleaf...
Rhea Ripley wins by submission with an elevated inverted cloverleaf.
Post-match, Raquel Rodriguez makes her entrance and hobbles to the ramp slowly on a crutch.
Rhea laughs and points and Raquel throws the crutch at her and attacks, she’s good to go! Ripley cuts her off with a kick, Rodriguez throws her into the corner and beats her down, catching her with a left arm lariat and a fallaway slam that sends her into the arms of Dominik Mysterio!
Rodriguez gets on the mic and states for clarity that she’s been cleared and tells her that the match has been made for Payback and she’s gonna take the WWE Women’s World Championship!
The Miz makes his entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get some hype for the Undertaker’s one-man show.
Tommaso Ciampa cuts a promo about how his time off let him introspect and talks about how Chad Gable and Shinsuke Nakamura have gone from wrestling him to challenging for titles and says he came back here to be the guy, it’s like oxygen and he’s dying to take a breath.
He’s here to take over the game.
The Miz is in the ring and on the mic.
He says LA Knight lost a match on SmackDown and everybody’s blaming him, but what Knight fails to realize is that on the big show, there’s no room for excuses. He was in the main event of WrestleMania when the Rock interfered in his match and he still won!
Twenty years from now we’ll remember him as a game changer, whereas LA will be a blip on the radar, the Hoobastank of WWE.
Akira Tozawa makes his entrance.
Miz asks if this is the biggest match of his career and Tozawa says “yeah” and keeps saying “yeah” to cut the A-Lister off! Miz gets mad and blasts him and we’re off!
Akira Tozawa vs. the Miz
We get a bell, Miz is distracted, Tozawa dropkicks him out of the ring! Low bridge sends the A-Lister out the far side of the ring and Akira blasts him with a suicide dive to send us to break!
Back from commercial, Awesome Clothesline connects as we discover that LA Knight has joined the commentary desk. Laying kicks in, Tozawa recovers, ducks a lariat, big tijeras, dropkick and he’s fired up! Stamina Monster goes up top but Miz blasts him off the turnbuckles and follows with a wrecking ball dropkick!
Akira steps up off the announce desk for another tijeras, enzuigiri from the apron, diving senton... THE KNEES ARE UP! Struggling in the aftermath, Tozawa is ready...
Akira Tozawa wins by pinfall with a victory roll pin.
Post-match, LA Knight runs in and hits the BFT on the Miz!
Drew McIntyre and Matt Riddle are down on the future of their team when New Day roll up to tell them not to give up so fast and they’ve got something going. Xavier Woods has a team name for them, McRiddle, and once they’re done with the Viking Raiders, they’ll be happy to have another match.
Becky Lynch makes her entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get another media hype reel covering John Cena’s return next week.
Rhea Ripley rolls up on Damian Priest, who informs her that he hasn’t been able to work it out with Finn Balor and he went off to talk to his boy JD McDonagh.
Priest blames Finn, Rhea gets mad and says she gave them a chance and now they’re gonna do things her way.
Becky Lynch is in the ring and gets on the mic.
She talks up her match against Trish Stratus at Payback and says there’s been a lot of talk about who’s the best and ultimately it comes down to legacy. What do you want your legacy to be? She’s come to realize her legacy won’t be determined by championships or wins and losses, but by survival.
You can injure her but she’ll always come back, you see. She says she still has some business with Zoey Stark and she talked to Adam Pearce and—
Enter Trish Stratus and Zoey Stark.
Stratus greets Quebec in French and says it’s hard to deal with all these USA-holes and she’s glad to be back in Canada. But then she turns in the crowd saying Quebec is no Montreal or even Toronto and she wouldn’t even be here if not for this sourpuss running her mouth.
She has good news for Becky— when she beats her she’ll prove that she’s the greatest of all time, and bad news— she’ll do it trapped in a steel cage, where she’s never fought before. Is she scared? Yeah, she is. But she was scared when she was 23 and having her first match, when she was one of the first women to main event Raw, and so on.
Her entire career she’s shined when thrown into the fire and in the cage she’ll stand tall. Becky wants to talk about survival? Here she is 25 years after being face-to-face with one of the best in the business, and she’s sick and tired of constantly having to prove herself.
Lynch will see a part of her she’s never had to show before, and she’s not gonna survive this one, bitch. Becky mockingly says she’s scared and says next week she’s got a match against Zoey in a falls count anywhere.
We get a recap of Piper Niven forcibly declaring herself Chelsea Green’s new tag partner.
The two of them are in Gorilla for an interview with Byron Saxton.
Chelsea complains about having to convince WWE management to recognize them as tag team champions and says they’re gonna do what tag partners do and their chemistry is off the charts. Piper tells her the interview is over and shoves her out the door.
They make their entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get a hype reel for Piper Niven.
Chelsea Green & Piper Niven vs. Katana Chance & Kayden Carter
Green and Chance to start, dropkick sends Chelsea into the ropes, tag to Carter, double teams follow. Green fights back, Kayden sidesteps a pump kick, clear the apron, tag to Katana. Assisted splash, Niven pulls Carter out of the ring and she’s legal from a blind tag earlier!
Piper back inside...
Chelsea Green & Piper Niven win by pinfall with a freight train crossbody from Niven on Katana Chance.
We see Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn hanging out backstage and we go to break.
Back from commercial, Seth Rollins is interviewed.
He asks for a second to let the crowd sing, and they do. Asked about his back he says Shinsuke Nakamura caught him off-guard last week because his back injury isn’t something he likes to talk about publicly, but yes he does have two fractures in his lumbar spine and he’s been living with it for four years.
It doesn’t get better by itself, it only gets worse, and he doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to do this at the level he’s at. That’s part of the gig, and so is Nakamura targeting his injuries and taking cheap shots and playing mind games, it’s even part of the gig for him to question his character.
But if Shinsuke wants to bring his family into it, then he better be prepared to face him man-to-man. But he’s not, is he? He’s not even here tonight, is he? He’s in a TV studio a thousand miles away, too afraid to face him. So here’s what Seth will do— next week, he’s gonna give him one more chance to play his games and prove to the world that he’s an honorable warrior.
Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn make their entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial, commentary hypes up next week’s show.
Judgment Day (Damian Priest & Finn Balor) vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
Brawling before the bell and we’re off, Priest and Zayn to start! Damian clubbing him in the corner, Sami blasting him over the ropes with a lariat, Balor gets involved but Zayn unloads on him too! Priest cracks a right hand out, back inside, Finn legal and Sami hits a straight suplex and makes the tag!
Owens in hot with punches, fired up, to the floor and he charges around to run over both of them with lariats! Up on the apron, right hand, cannonball, senton atomico! Back inside, Stunner blocked, Sling Blade connects! JD McDonagh tries to throw the briefcase to Finn but KO intercepts it and cracks Balor in the head with it...
Judgment Day win by disqualification.
Priest yells at JD to stay out of Judgment Day business, Dominik joins in helping to beat Sami up, Kev tries to save his friend but just gets overwhelmed—
CODY RHODES MAKES THE SAVE AND WHIPS THEM WITH HIS WEIGHT BELT TO CLEAR THE RING! CODY POINTS OUT IT’S THREE ON THREE AND HE WANTS TO GO! ADAM PEARCE MAKES IT OFFICIAL!
...after the break.
Cody Rhodes, Kevin Owens, & Sami Zayn vs. Judgment Day (Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio, & Finn Balor)
Match joined in progress, babyfaces working Mysterio over, but quick thinking leads to Owens getting worked over on the floor and even slammed by Ripley! Back inside, Priest gets a nearfall and we go to break.
Back from commercial, superkick to Balor, Rhodes knocked off the apron, Kevin and Finn down and out! Tags made, Zayn lighting Priest up with punches, springboard up and over, lariat, clear the apron, Sami lands a back elbow and follows it with an overhead elbow off the second!
Lucha step-up tornado DDT... SO CLOSE! South of Heaven... KO BREAKS IT UP! Passing Finn to the floor, Priest lays Owens out with a lariat, Cody’s fired up for the tag! Tag made, Beautiful Disaster takes Mysterio out, duck a lariat, double Cody Cutter on him and Damian... MYSTERIO KICKS OUT!
Waiting for Dom to rise, inverted facelock, Finn runs in so he eats Cross Rhodes instead! Mysterio with a schoolboy for two, inverted facelock, Cross Rhodes connects! Dominik falls into his corner, Rhodes tags Zayn in, tag to Kev, Helluva Kick sets him up...
Cody Rhodes, Kevin Owens, & Sami Zayn win by pinfall with a stunner from Owens on Dominik Mysterio.
Post-match, Sami gets on the mic and tells Judgment Day better luck next time and offers another parting line in French.
That’s the show, folks.
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