Brock Lesnar appears on RAW tonight ahead of his title match against Ricochet at Super ShowDown on Thursday. Randy Orton will need to find a new target, now he’s disposed of both Edge and Matt Hardy. Becky Lynch and Shayna Baszler will both be in Winnipeg for this week’s RAW which opens up the possibility of some interaction. Erick Rowan got himself a rematch against Aleister Black. And Humberto Carrillo goes one on one with Angel Garza.

I’m Amanda and this is the RAW review.

Match Results

Angel Garza def. Humberto Carrillo

Ricochet def. Luke Gallows

Aleister Black def. Erick Rowan

Bobby Lashley def. R-Truth

Angelo Dawkins def. Murphy

Seth Rollins def. Montez Ford

Randy Orton def. Kevin Owens

The Show

♦ The pre-credits recap was of Randy Orton attacking both Matt Hardy and Edge, repeatedly overlaid with his apology. Orton then opened the show proper to a chorus of boos. He started by saying he needed to apologise. He’s definitely not the most sentimental of men but lately his emotions have become unbalanced. This morning when he arrived at the venue he was told it had been 15 years since RAW was in Winnipeg. He would have been 24 years old. He did a little research and saw that, on that RAW, he was the Intercontinental Champion and he was punched in the face by a man who would eventually save him from his self-destructive tendencies and that he would eventually come to look up to and love like a brother. His name was Adam but we know him as Edge. He started to say, ‘if Edge was here tonight’, but was interrupted by ‘We Want Edge” chants and explained Edge couldn’t be there because of what he did to him. He doesn’t expect anyone to understand, in fact, he knows we couldn’t. But what he did he is very sorry for, truly and from the bottom of his heart.

Kevin Owens came out at that point. Owens said that for the past few months he’s been dealing with a lot of delusional people, but he’s putting that aside for the night because tonight he has an issue with Orton. He clarified that he’d heard Orton apologize, then told him he doesn’t think he meant it and asked for an explanation. Matt Hardy asked and got beaten up twice, now he’s asking. Orton told he didn’t want to go there, and Owens assured him he does and talked about how Edge’s retirement and reappearance affected him. But Orton took it all away and he wanted to know why.

After a smartass answer from Orton, Owens challenged him to a match. Randy Orton accepted, but not until later.

♦ Charly Caruso spoke to Angel Garza and Zelina Vega and asked what unfinished business they have with Humberto Carrillo. Vega said they just need to take out the trash, Garza just needs to put his cousin back in his place. Garza turned the charm on Charly at the end and it seemed fairly effective.

Angel Garza, with Zelina Vega, vs Humberto Carrillo was the first match of the night. It’s great when RAW gives a really good match the time it deserves, and this one got plenty. No one fights like family, so Garza and Carrillo didn’t hold anything back. Carrillo had a genuine score to settle, while Garza just had a massive ego to feed. Ego won in this case, Garza got the pin in understated fashion, by shifting his body weight when Carrillo was trying to flip him. Superb opener.

♦ Ricochet vs Luke Gallows was interesting because AJ Styles and Karl Anderson only accompanied Gallows as far as the stage. Theoretically, he was a good warmup opponent for Ricochet, as commentary pointed out. Paul Heyman was shown watching backstage. As it went, it was good practice for being thrown around and physically dominated in the early parts of the match. As he generally does, Ricochet turned it around with sheer speed and athleticism and got the pin after a Recoil and a shooting star from the top.

Backstage, Gallows and Anderson were shouting at each other and AJ Styles told them off. He talked about the possibility of a miracle happening, Ricochet could beat Brock Lesnar to become champion, and he will be right there to take it off him. Then he started picking on Aleister Black, who just happened to be walking past. Karl Anderson attacked him from the side while Styles had his attention, then the three of them left him laying. Looks like Black is moving on to bigger and better opponents sooner rather than later.

♦ Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman’s appearance was a simple hype segment for Lesnar vs Ricochet. Apparently, the stakes have never been higher because if somehow Ricochet pulls it off then he goes onto main event WrestleMania against Drew McIntyre which would change the nature of the event. But it won’t happen. Heyman’s spoiler is that Lesnar will beat Ricochet, then go on to beat McIntyre. Obviously, Heyman used a LOT more words. Lesnar had a little pose on the announce desk on his way out.

♦ Erick Rowan vs Aleister Black saw Rowan with a distinct advantage. He stumbled during his entrance and hobbled down the ramp holding his ribs. Rowan looked amused, clearly thinking he was in for an easy day at the office, and took immediate control. The match lasted long enough for Black to gather himself a bit and get competitive. Black kicked out of everything Rowan threw at him, so he took it to the outside and tried to break Black’s back on the barricade. When Rowan charged Black, he dodged and Rowan barrelled into the steps, sending his cage flying. Rowan took the time to powerbomb Black into the ringpost before checking on his caged thing, but took two Black Masses when he got back in the ring and got pinned.

Sarah Schreiber asked Black how he managed to overcome the odds. Black said rage. And next week his rage will be AJ Styles burden. If anyone thinks that’s too cryptic, ‘Next week, Monday Night RAW, AJ Styles, we fight’.

♦ Charly Caruso had a sit-down interview with Drew McIntyre and asked who he’d rather face, Ricochet of Lesnar. He doesn’t care, he just wants to main event WrestleMania. It was promised to him a long time ago and never materialised. Vince McMahon himself called him The Chosen One and proclaimed him a future world champion. He’s won zero titles since. The face it ever happened was his own fault, he was a liability at times and inevitably got fired. He was angry and bitter and thought he’d ever come back. Then he realised he was the only person to blame, dropped the chip on his shoulder, and worked his way back. Triple H brought him back to NXT, where he became champion. He came back to RAW four years to the day from his release. He left a boy and returned a man. Now he’s trying to show what can happen if you work hard.

They talked about the Royal Rumble match. McIntyre said he knew he had to eliminate Brock Lesnar. At WrestleMania, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Brock Lesnar or Ricochet. Finally, Drew McIntyre fulfils his destiny.

♦ R-Truth hosted Truth TV with Bobby Lashley and Lana, or tried to. It turned out Lashley and Truth were scheduled to have a match and R-Truth wanted no part of it because Lashley is really big. Sadly, Lana screamed for the ref to ring the bell and R-Truth vs Bobby Lashley began with Lashley attacking Truth while he was still taking his jacket off. It was a short-lived thing finished by a spear from Lashley.

♦ For some reason they felt the need to have a contract signing for the women’s Elimination Chamber match (instead of a women’s division match, of course). Jerry Lawler officiated, but he quickly lost the mic to Asuka, who was unhappy Shayna Baszler no-showed. When he got the mic back, he said Baszler was in the arena but they didn’t know where she was. For the first two hours, RAW was sprinkled with clips of the developing feud between Becky Lynch and Shayna Baszler, so I think we could see where this was headed. Anyway, Sarah Logan, Natalya, and Liv Morgan signed. Things got tense when Morgan presented the contract to Ruby Riott, but she signed and so did Asuka.

Only then did Shayna Baszler’s music hit and Baszler appeared through the crowd. She signed, stared down each of her opponents, and got in Natalya’s face. They squared up but Asuka shoved Natalya to the mat and challenged Baszler to bite her. Natalya jumped on her before they could get into it, and Liv Morgan flew over the table at Ruby Riott. Sarah Logan’s loyalties appear to lie with Liv Morgan. Baszler was just watching it all and laughing, then Becky Lynch arrived. Baszler waited for her in the ring and they traded blows until officials arrived to drag them apart.

♦ Street Profits have a tag title match at Super ShowDown against ‘Murph the Smurf’ and ‘The Monday Night Pariah’ In preparation, they had singles matches against Murphy and Rollins. Ford and Dawkins got to chat to the crowd before the matches started. They want the smoke.

Angelo Dawkins vs Murphy started with Murphy throwing his shirt into Dawkins’ face and finished via disqualification when Seth Rollins interfered to stop Murphy being pinned. Ford said Rollins was right to protect Murphy because Dawkins hit him so hard last week they removed his first name.

Montez Ford vs Seth Rollins was fun once both Dawkins and Murphy had been banned from ringside. It was nearly very short because Ford rolled Rollins up while he was arguing with the ref. Rollins kicked out and the match was good. Montez Ford came close to pinning Rollins and had the better of him for a while, but it finished with a Stomp after Rollins rolled out of the way of Ford’s frogsplash.

♦ Beth Phoenix will be on RAW next week to provide an update on Edge’s medical condition.

♦ Rhea Ripley got a nice hype package to familiarise the casuals with her before her WrestleMania match against Charlotte Flair.

♦ Randy Orton vs Kevin Owens main evented the show. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the uninterrupted one on one it could have been because Rollins, Murphy, and AOP turned up and surrounded the ring followed by Street Profits and The Viking Raiders. They fought Murphy and AOP away, but Rollins remained a distraction at ringside. He interfered as soon as it looked like Owens was taking control of the match and his two distractions handed Orton the match.

The finish was weird. Orton delivered his DDT and the ref did the fastest fast count in the history of fast counts. It became a little clearer when the ref immediately went to check on Seth Rollins and Rollins threw a couple of chairs into the ring. Rollins engineered it so Orton would do to Owens what he did to Edge and Hardy. But Kevin Owens got up and picked up the chair Orton put under his head. He faced off against Orton with it, but the ref pulled it out of his hands. Orto walked away and Owens dragged the ref into the ring and pulled his shirt open to reveal a Seth Rollins shirt. Owens gave him a stunner, while Rollins protested from the stage, then powerbombed him through a table.

That was a decent episode of RAW. The corrupt ref is a bit overdone, but it’s been a little while so I guess it was due a resurgence. It’s disappointing that they didn’t feel the need to include an actual women’s match, but at least the contract signing meant we saw about three weeks’ worth of the women’s division in terms of appearances. Super ShowDown looks like a decent show, politics aside, and next week will be full steam ahead to Elimination Chamber.