WrestleMania is now just days away as Monday Night Raw had its go-home edition live from Washington, DC. The show was hyped up by the WWE as Batista being there in his hometown live, a Raw Tag Team Championship match, as well as an announcement by Stephanie McMahon surrounding the main event of WrestleMania. This also marked the last chance in the fans’ eyes that Baron Corbin could be removed as Kurt Angle’s final opponent, which made a good Raw become sour for many people in the end. Let’s take a look:
Seth Rollins Stomps Out the Beast
This Sunday, the Men’s Royal Rumble winner Seth Rollins heads into Suplex City as he will face Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship. As we are just days away, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman decided to show up last night to leave their final statement before the show of shows. Paul would bring up the past of Lesnar at WrestleMania and how he ends the aura there of certain people. He ended the Undertaker’s streak and simply destroyed Roman Reigns just last year in the main event. Heyman then made a point that if you are a fan of a hockey fight, a fan of a NASCAR car crash, and football for the riots, then you are going to be a fan of what Brock Lesnar does to Seth Rollins Sunday. The point made would be that Brock will violate and destroy the man known as Seth Rollins. Rollins would have enough, heading to the ring and making the point that it is not impossible to beat The Beast at WrestleMania. Lesnar would just laugh it off and bump into Rollins on his way out. This would set Rollins off, hitting a low blow to Lesnar and trying to take advantage. Lesnar would send Rollins to Suplex City for at least one moment before Rollins would reverse the F5 into yet another low blow. Rollins would then “Burn it Down” with his signature Stomp, holding up the Universal Championship before heading off. It is safe to believe that not only is this the biggest match so far in the career of Seth Rollins, but there is a real chance he can slay the Beast and Burn Down Suplex City on his way to becoming the new Universal Champion.
Batista Makes One Last Statement to Triple H
In his hometown, Batista would come out to mostly cheers as he would make his final statement to Triple H ahead of their No Holds Barred match on Sunday. As Batista would get prepared to speak, he would simply point to the titantron where a video would be played. The video would be all of their previous meetings, where Batista’s words from the 1000th edition of SmackDown would be played. “There is nothing this man hasn’t done in this business… except beat me.” This would play throughout the entire video, as it would just show Batista putting down Triple H every single time. As we would cut back to the spotlight of Batista, he would stand there for a second and finally remove his glasses. Batista would say one simple thing to make his statement, “Hunter, kiss my ass.” This would be all “The Animal” would have to say, as he would embrace the crowd and his fans before finally leaving, possibly for the last time. One thing is for sure, Batista is going to do everything in his power to make his final match s special as it possibly can be.
“The Demon” Rises at WrestleMania
Bobby Lashley would have an in-ring interview with Charley Caruso late in the show. The angry Lashley would get ready to voice his frustration following his handicap loss last week due to Jinder Mahal getting pinned on his behalf, yet Lio Rush would steal the mic. Lio would bring up how it was a fluke and once again Finn Balor did not pin Lashley, and that “The Almighty” only had to worry about his championship celebration after the fact. Following, Caruso would ask the “what if” many fans have been waiting for, which was if the Demon persona of Finn Balor shows up, would he be worried then. Lashley would get on the mic to make a simple point. The Demon is Finn Balor. Finn Balor is The Demon. He dominates Finn Balor every single time. Finn would appear on the screen, as he would remind Lashley to actually have concerns because Balor’s demon is coming out at WrestleMania. He would be dawning the Demon paint, as this would mark the very first time that Finn Balor will become the Demon at WrestleMania, which will surely be a spectacle.
Raw MVP: The WrestleMania Main Event
To kick off Raw was Stephanie McMahon making a huge announcement regarding the WrestleMania main event. She would first joke that she would add a fourth woman, being herself, which would of course lead to plenty of boos by the crowd. She was of course, playing to the April Fool’s Day aspect. She would then make the ultimate announcement that many expected, which would be that the WrestleMania main event would be “Winner Take All”, as who ever wins the match will become both the Raw and SmackDown LIVE Women’s Champion.
Later on in the night would be the big 6-women tag team match that would include a team of Charlotte, Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey teaming. And the twist would be that if one person betrayed someone during the match, they would be removed from the main event. So with that, all three would head out to face The Riott Squad. The three would battle most of the match verbally, but never turning on each other in the process. Rousey and Charlotte wouldn’t look impressed at points in the match when Lynch was getting beaten down by the entire Riott Squad. However, Becky would ultimately prevail and try to win this one by herself before Charlotte would tag herself in. Becky and Charlotte would get into the faces of one another before Ronda would ultimately tag herself in and make Liv Morgan tap out in quick succession. As soon as the bell would ring, it was on.
Rousey would take out Charlotte immediately as the brawl would get out of hand between these three women. The hate became real, as eventually security and officers would head out to the ring to try and stop them from taking each other out. Rousey would be handcuffed after hitting an officer. This allowed a free shot by “The Man” as she would nail the defenseless Rousey, resulting in her also getting handcuffed. Charlotte wasn’t done however, as she would come right back to hit both Ronda and Lynch while they could do nothing about it. As all three would be handcuffed eventually, they would all refuse to go out quietly. Rousey would continue to fight back, tripping the officer’s multiple times. Charlotte would use her strength and size to stop them as well. They would get backstage where they would be loaded into police cars. Stupidly and hilariously, Becky and Ronda would be placed in the same car. They would take one look at each other before starting to kick the life out of each other. Ronda would break open a window in the process, and finally the cops realized maybe they shouldn’t be in the same cruiser. They would take Becky out and bring her to the one Charlotte was sitting in, which would result in Charlotte rising out and attacking Becky as they would once again brawl. Then as the police broke them up once again, Ronda would slam one of the cars into the other seemingly to just get the attention of everyone. These three continued to kick and fight. Ronda would poke her head outside of the broken window, where Charlotte would connect with a hard knee to the side of the head of Rousey. They would finally all be separated and driven away. This was easily the best segment of the show and of this main event build up between the three, as the pure hate and feel of it was truly spectacular.
Raw highlighted the main event perfectly, and now we have one last show before WrestleMania. SmackDown LIVE is scheduled to include a contract signing between the WWE Champion Daniel Bryan and the challenger Kofi Kingston. Who knows what can happen, but the only thing that is for sure is that Kingston will confirm his dream tonight.
Tune in tomorrow for the SmackDown LIVE Rundown and all week long as we continue to highlight and preview all Mania festivities and events.
