For months, the cocky Seth Rollins has been playing with fire. On RAW, his arrogance finally came back to bite him.
Early on RAW, Triple H and Stephanie reminded Rollins what he had said last week about not needing The Authority to win. While he groveled to them, and said how much he still respected them, he reiterated his insistence about not needing Kane, or J&J Security.
This led to a hurt Jamie Noble, with Joey Mercury in tow, approaching Seth Rollins in the locker room. He talked about how he knew Rollins wasn't serious, and that they'd still be in his corner. Rollins, though, continued to insist that he didn't need him, saying that he made them, and would do just as well without them.
Noble gave a great line about Rollins breaking up Shield 2.0 (as Noble said, he was a better version of Dean Ambrose while Mercury was a better version of Roman Reigns), and when Rollins said that he'd face both of them in a handicap match, Mercury broke his silence by saying that while they've always had Rollins' back and they'd kick his ass tonight.
The match was a pretty standard comedy match. It's funny to remember that both Noble and Mercury were champions in WWE (cruiserweight and tag champions, respectively). However, they downplayed their abilities the entire match. However, after Dean Ambrose distracted Rollins, J&J were able to pull of the shocking win. Ambrose then hit Rollins once again with Dirty Deeds and celebrated with the title to close RAW.
We've seen this trope often in wrestling. A wrestler, specifically a heel, surrounds himself with a group of supporters. Eventually, he gets so arrogant that he feels like he can win without the group. And of course, he can't. Now, half the time this ends up being a ruse, and all of them get back together, and it wouldn't surprise me if this was the case here. Other times though, it leads to the downfall of a heel champion. We'll see which ends up coming through. For one night at least, we got to see Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury shine, and that's always a nice thing.
The Rest of RAW:
-The show kicked off with John Cena and Kevin Owens exchanging words. After Owens told Cena that people were tired of him and his open challenge, he suggested having an open challenge of his own. Cena quickly accepted, saying that Owens should face him.
Owens refused, which caused Cena to point to that as a reason why his US Title open challenge was better, because he accepted any challengers. Owens then said the next person to come out could decide who to face. Neville came out and challenged Owens. These two had a great match, which shouldn't surprise anyone who has been watching NXT. They had a couple of great matches back in the winter after Owens debuted.
Owens won, and he and Cena had a showdown with both raising their titles at the end of the night. It seems like they're building this to a winner-takes-all match, though the logistics of that could get interesting.
-Xavier Woods was an understated MVP on Monday night. His commentary from ringside supporting Big E in his loss to Titus O'Neil and Kofi in his loss to Roman Reigns was fantastic. It included lines like shouting "#MinisterOfMass" for Big E. The best, though, was when Kofi hit Reigns with a top rope double axe handle. Woods referenced Ready to Rumble, shouting "He crowned him!" and "Kofi will RULE you!" If you don't get those references, you need to go find the best terrible wrestling movie of all time. The New Day continues to be extremely over as heels, and Woods is a big reason why.
-Speaking of gems, R-Truth had a great moment in the classic pre-Money in the Bank segment where everyone came out to tout themselves as the future winner. Despite not being in the match, he came out and declared that he had conquered his fear of ladders. Kane reminded him that he wasn't in the match, and he retreated sheepishly to the back. R-Truth has really found new life as the top comedy guy in the company. Santino earned the US title in 2012 after he got truly over as a comedy figure. It wouldn't shock me if Truth was rewarded similarly in the near-future, because he has been fantastic for the past few months.
-Randy Orton and Sheamus once again faced each other, and once again it ended in DQ, as this time it was Randy Orton who used the chair to draw the DQ. Despite the fact that these two haven't had a huge feud, it seems like they always are in the ring together, and it's drawing some fatigue from the crowd. They barely responded last week, and didn't respond at all this week. The WWE needs to remember this in the future, unless they're going to have a full feud with these two to try to make the crowd care about another match in the future.
-Kane beat Dolph Ziggler in the other match between Money in the Bank competitors (Kane had been announced as an entrant last week on Smackdown). Ziggler was distracted at the end by an injury to Lana, who had been on the ramp watching. Rusev came down to both beg for her to come back, and also berate her. She stepped awkwardly off the ramp and twisted her ankle, which distracted Ziggler enough for Kane to get the win. I can't tell if Lana is intentionally being awkward to show that she's not into Ziggler, or if the two just have no chemistry, but it's getting hard to watch. They need to rethink this angle, because I think it's going to hurt Ziggler if it goes any longer.
-The IC title match between Ryback and Big Show was made official in another MizTV segment. While the segment was fine, and set up a big man confrontation while the two took turns taking shots at Miz, the end felt a little off. The match should have been set up by asking if Ryback can use his power moves on the Big Show. However, at the end of the segment, Ryback lifted up Big Show and hit him with Shell Shock. It was a great feat of strength, but one that should have been saved for the match.
-Nikki Bella beat Summer Rae. Before the match, she cut a promo on Paige, saying that Paige shouldn't blame the Bellas for holding anyone back, and that Paige simply isn't good enough. So if there was any doubt, the Bellas are heel again ... I guess?
-Harper and Rowan beat Los Matadores. The surprising thing was that they used the 3D as their finisher in the match. After the match, they cut a promo about judgment coming, and that it was OK to be scared, because everyone should be.
-One final note comes on the Tough Enough finalists, who were announced during RAW. The big name of the group is Adam Ohriner, better known as The Big O, who is Zack Ryder's best friend and was shown often in the Z True Long Island Story videos. However, it should be noted, and congratulations should go out to, Maryland Championship Wrestling's Patrick Clark (who went as Rick Powers, part of Sudden Impact in MCW), who was named as one of the 40 finalists. He'll now have to make the next cut down to 13 for the television show.
Thoughts? Questions? Leave them in the comment section, email me or find me on Twitter: @TheAOster. You can also find my podcast, Jobbing Out, on iTunes.