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This won’t be long because the video speaks for itself: Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar is my pick for the hottest thing going into this year’s WrestleMania.
We got an excellent pull-apart brawl designed to show mere mortals can’t contain these cats. It also, once again, showed Brock’s apprehension and just how much Oba is in his head. This is a proper build for two monstrous men and I can’t wait to see the end result.
I really don’t need to say anything else because a picture is worth a thousand of the things I’ve already written more than a thousand of.
B-Sides
- Remember when Jimmy Uso said Jey Uso’s temper gets them both into trouble? Well, now it cost them their Tag Team Championships and ground in this war against The Vision. That’s part of the story coming out of this New York Street Fight and obviously the biggest one. I mean, we got new tag champs! But the story WWE will no doubt run with as the biggest involves IShowSpeed involvement. Sometimes the words just interlock with ease. I digress! This was a chaotic street fight, as most are, but it got a bit overbooked with ishowspeed sitting ringside, Logan Paul’s moms sitting next to him, and LA Knight on commentary. Props to the territory for fitting all those pieces together even if I don’t particularly care for the final puzzle. Logan’s mom slid him brass knuckles but LA tried dragging Logan away from his mom. Logan dragged Speed over the barricade, Speed grabbed the knuckles, then accidentally dropped LA with them. That commotion eventually led to Logan getting his hand (knuckles) on the foreign object, knocking out Jimmy, and giving Austin Theory the easy pin. The Vision has cataracts; they needed IShowSpeed and Logan’s dear mother to defeat The Usos. This is no doubt setting up a six-way at Mania with Speed & The Vision vs. The Usos & LA. Meh. Hopefully it’s not long.
- Speaking of things I hope aren’t long for this world, The Usos new theme music doesn’t tickle my fancy. Yes, I’m over the freaking moon that they finally let them come to the ring together to music about both of them rather than Jey’s theme which is all about him. Progress! But the theme itself? No thank you. Why give them a new theme with the same words “Down since, day one ish…” when the original theme says the same thing and works so much better for them? Music is preference and hey, my taste may differ from yours. But this is my recap and this new Uso tune was a big whiff at the plate, no ABS needed. Leave it to WWE to fix what wasn’t broken.
- Bayley & Lyra Valkyria will have to wait for their Women’s Tag Team Championship shot. Oh, it happened this week but it didn’t finish. Why? Well, every team interested in those titles came to the ring. The Bellas, Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss showed up and a larger brawl broke out. The Prelude to a Fatal 4 Way at Mania.
- “Your mother is trash, bitch!” That’s not directed at anyone reading this, I’m just quoting Liv Morgan. She yelled that towards Stephanie Vaquer during her in-ring promo. Stephanie, understandably, didn’t take too kindly to those words against her madre. But after the champ looked like she had the upper hand on her future challenger, out came Roxanne Perez! Roxanne announced her comeback via sneak attack and helping her friend get a clear advantage over La Primera. How does Steph walk out of Mania with that title around her waist when it will more than likely be two vs. one?
- Kofi Kingston and Je’Von Evans spoke in one of those background shots Haitch loves. This didn’t look like an acrimonious convo either; they looked like two cats on the same page simply chatting it up. Fast forward to Kofi’s Intercontinental Championship match against Penta where he shunned Grayson Waller’s help at every turn. I thought it was simply tough love last week when Kofi told Grayson to win on his own, but it looks like part of a possible face turn for one half of New Day. Kofi took an L, of course, but it looks like he’s changing his alignment and creating friction in the crew. Although I never really considered Grayson a true member of the crew. My two big questions are how does Je’Von play into this and what will Xavier Woods think when he comes back? They said years ago that New Day will never break up but is there a world where Xavier takes Grayson’s side while Kofi teams with Je’Von? I don’t think putting Je’Von in a faction makes much sense because the kid rocks on his own. Putting him in New Day would actually blot out their shine since Je’Von is like a zillion watt bulb. I’m not on board with that but also don’t like Xavier taking Grayson’s side in anything, much less against his best friend.
- Lots of talk about GUNTHER’s place at WrestleMania. Consider those questions answered: Seth Rollins is next on his dance card. Paul E. cut a promo and Adam Pearce interrupted with bad news for the man: Boston PD dropped all charges against Seth Rollins for basketball reasons, and Seth is medically cleared for action. Before Seth got the drop on Paul, GUNTHER took him out. Why? Shrug. My guess is Paul hired GUNTHER. For all that “the mat is sacred” talk, GUNTHER is a businessman. It makes sense with all of Paul’s other options either on the shelf or preoccupied. I don’t think this makes GUNTHER a member of the family, just makes him a hired General.
- It’s always weird using Stephanie McMahon in anything storyline-related with men because she almost always gets physical. She did so this week when she stepped to Cody Rhodes in the show’s opening minutes to tell him he’s not ready for this version of Randy Orton. I took her point; Cody isn’t his dad, not by a long shot. Dusty Rhodes was the common man who knew how to fight ugly and didn’t mind playing dirty to get ahead when the situation called for it. Cody, for the most part, is a milquetoast babyface who calls himself America’s Nightmare while dressing like a 1920s prospector. I’m more concerned with robbing a small town for their gold than I am of him making anyone feel pain. That aside, Steph slapped Cody when he reminded the former Billion Dollar Princess that she’s not her father. That’s a weird reason to slap him, right? But again, there’s nothing Cody can do with that. He thanked Stephanie for the talk and bounced. Despite how much Haitch says he abhors attention (sure, Jan), I feel like this whole thing works better if it’s him instead of Stephanie. Triple H practically created Randy. He nurtured his psychotic side and unleashed it on everyone like a weapon. He’s been on Randy’s good side and his bad. And there’s just more weight behind his words rather than putting Steph on the show because she’s Steph and to remind us she’s a Hall of Fame inductee.
- Raquel Rodriguez defeated IYO SKY in what might be the most understated match of the episode. The Kabuki Warriors involved themselves and played into the ending but this was just a solid but short wrestling match on a show filled with a lot of fireworks.
- Remember when I said Penta defeated Kofi? Your memory can’t be that bad so of course you do. Well, Penta announced an Intercontinental Championship ladder match for Mania. Then, WWE did the funny thing of lying to us all. They had the unmitigated audacity to announced participants (Rusev, Dragon Lee, Je’Von Evans, and JD McDonagh) qualified by winning Main Event matches. I have it on good authority that no such matches happened. I give them props on the boldness but even they know Main Event gets so little viewership that they feel they can lie about what does or doesn’t happen on the show. That. Is. Hilarious. Awful storytelling and insults my intelligence, but hilarious.
- Possibly because the other pull-apart brawl hit harder. Possibly because this just remixed what they did last week. Or maybe because we still have a couple weeks before Mania and I feel like there’s nowhere else to go with this build. For any or all of those reasons, CM Punk and Roman Reigns disappointed me this week. They’ve gotten physical twice now and this was just Punk returning the favor from last week.
- What is WWE Club? Hmmm.
This Raw moved like a freight train speeding downhill. There were a couple bumps along the way, like their insulting logic with that Intercontinental Championship ladder match, Stephanie’s slap, and pretty much most of the elements in the show’s opening segments. But once it got beyond that, it was a pretty smooth ride. This was all about putting more Mania matches on the board.
What say you, Cagesiders? Are you feeling The Usos’ music or do you long for the days of real day one ish?
