Monday Night Raw tonight takes place from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. This is a major wrestling venue that has hosted a very long list of wrestling events including, the first four editions of NWA Starrcade, from 1983 to 1986. It also hosted the final night of the first-ever Great American Bash tour, headlined by Dusty Rhodes defeating Ric Flair in a Steel Cage Match to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The venue also saw the end of The Alliance when the WWF hosted the 2001 Survivor Series event featuring the headlining WWF vs Alliance ‘Winner Take All’ main event. In more modern years, this venue saw the rather infamous “New Day’s Time Machine” segment, where The New Day would get into a big cardboard “time machine,” Kofi Kingston briefly regained his Jamaican accent before The Vaudevillains (Simon Gotch and Aiden English, nowadays known as commentator Matt Rehwoldt) attacked them. Preview this week’s WWE Raw, featuring The Bloodline and much more.
WWE Raw (5/2/22) Preview
#TheBloodline returns to #WWERaw tomorrow night just days before #WMBacklash!@WWERomanReigns @WWEUsos @HeymanHustle pic.twitter.com/odDSfWnn9z
— WWE (@WWE) May 1, 2022
The Bloodline Comes to WWE Raw
As of this morning, the only thing advertised for WWE Raw tonight is the arrival of The Bloodline. The Undisputed Universal WWE Champion, The Head Of The Table, Roman Reigns comes alongside his Wiseman, Paul Heyman, and his cousins, the longest reigning SmackDown Tag Team Champions, Jimmy & Jey, The Usos.
The arrival of the group on to the Raw brand comes after a very odd WrestleMania Backlash match change when the Tag Team Championship Unification Match between The Usos & RK-Bro, which was, for all intents and purposes, the top-billed match for the event, was changed. Instead, it is now a trios match as all three wrestling members of The Bloodline face RK-Bro alongside Drew McIntyre with no titles on the line now.
With just one week between the match announcement and WrestleMania Backlash, we’ll likely see some fast-order promos to push the new match.
Who Challenges Bianca Belair?
While SmackDown has Charlotte Flair vs Ronda Rousey as a major Premium Live Event match for WrestleMania Backlash, we seem to not have one for Bianca Belair. Coming out of WrestleMania, it seemed Sonya Deville would be her challenger for the event. Instead, the match took place last week from Belair’s hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.
While a rematch is in fact possible, despite the dominant win for The EST of WWE, Sonya Deville being a WWE authority figure can likely make her way into a rematch for WrestleMania Backlash after all. At the moment, there seems to be no available opponent for Bianca Belair right away for the WrestleMania Backlash show this Sunday.
Safe to say @BeckyLynchWWE didn't appreciate @WWEAsuka interrupting her last week on #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/7PhKAqSUz7
— WWE (@WWE) May 2, 2022
The Man’s Biggest Nightmare
Last week saw the return of The Man, Becky Lynch. She talked about making her way back to the top, as she does not belong in the bottom. However, right after she expressed those feelings, Asuka also made her return, spooking Lynch. Asuka proceeded to confidently yell at Becky, who was clearly rattled by her long-time foe.
To this day, Becky Lynch has had a very hard time against Asuka when the two faced each other, losing to The Empress of Tomorrow various times on Premium Live Events, including the 2019 Royal Rumble for the Smackdown Women’s Championship. While Lynch has defeated Asuka in the past, The Empress has been more of a problem for Big Time Becks than even Charlotte Flair has. Clearly, we’re on our way to another big match between these two. The question is when.
The Red Brand’s Go-Home For WrestleMania Backlash
WrestleMania Backlash is this Sunday. Thus, we have to expect big, final pushes towards Raw’s matches for the event. The red brand seems to have far more established for WrestleMania Backlash than SmackDown does with Cody Rhodes vs Seth Rollins, AJ Styles vs Edge, and Omos vs Bobby Lashley already confirmed. We’ve seen these three matches pushed along for weeks now. It’s time for the final push toward them.
All this, and more, is set tonight on Monday Night Raw on the USA Network.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the WWE Network and Peacock.
