Clash of Champions is done (read the full review here), and the fallout from that will become the build for Hell in a Cell. However, as announced last night, the WWE Draft will take place before that, on October 9th and 12th, so any storylines in the next couple of weeks could end very abruptly. Drew McIntyre kicks the show off with Big Show, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, and Christian, who all played their parts in his victory over Randy Orton. Asuka has given Zelina Vega a rematch after Vega attacked her after their match (rewarding her for the attack with another title shot is weird). Kevin Owens and Aleister Black get another go at each other. And the Mysterio family will appear on King’s Court.

I’m Amanda and this is the RAW review.

Match Results

Asuka def. Zelina Vega

Keith Lee def. Andrade

Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke def. Natalya & Lana

Kevin Owens def. Aleister Black (DQ)

R-Truth def. Drew Gulak and Akira Tozawa

Murphy def. Dominik Mysterio

Apollo Crews, Mustafa Ali, & Ricochet def. The Hurt Business

Drew McIntyre def. Bobby Roode

The Show

♦ Ric Flair, Big Show, Christian, and Shawn Michaels came out first and we got a recap of their involvement in Drew McIntyre vs Randy Orton before Michaels welcomed everyone and introduced Drew McIntyre.

It was hugs and smiles all round and pyro for the legends and the champ. McIntyre talked about the legends he was sharing the ring with and his history with them. Michaels said they hoped McIntyre wasn’t upset by their interference, but if he was it was Ric Flair’s fault. McIntyre said the more the merrier when it comes to beating on Orton.

Randy Orton appeared on the big screen and said it’s not over until he says it is and that won’t be until he’s WWE Champion. McIntyre asked if he’s going to beg for another match and Orton said he doesn’t have to, he’ll be given one because of who he is.

Once Orton had gone, McIntyre issued an open challenge to anyone he hasn’t already faced, for later in the show. He doesn’t feel good after the Ambulance Match, but that’s the kind of champion he wants to be.

♦ Zelina Vega had a pre-match interview. She said she’s just getting started and she’s ready for Asuka, but Asuka isn’t ready for her. Asuka arrived and said she’s ready for Vega to lose to her one more time. They yelled at each other until someone arrived to keep them apart until they got to the ring.

Asuka (C) vs Zelina Vega – RAW Women’s Championship match – was the first match of the show. Vega went in fast but found herself reaching for the ropes to get out of a submission within seconds. She did get a submission attempt herself, but it came to nothing. Zelina Vega is feisty and clever and not above using whatever means necessary, but that didn’t stop her getting kicked out of mid-air going into a break.

She was doing the kicking when we came back, but it didn’t last long and even going back to the arm Asuka injured yesterday wasn’t going to be enough to save her. She got another couple of credible pin attempts but succumbed to an Asuka Lock that Asuka was entirely disinclined to release.

♦ The legends were playing poker backstage.

♦ When we came back from another break, Andrade was in the ring telling Vega she is nothing without him. He also said Garza was the weak link in their team last night, which is why he got hurt. He said he’s the greatest and asked who wanted to face him. Keith Lee answered this second open challenge of the night.

Andrade vs Keith Lee was good but not long. It finished with a  Keith Lee Spirit Bomb.

♦ The Hurt Business, mainly Bobby Lashley, intimidated an employee who dared to sit at their lunch table. They also stole his lunch. Cedric Alexander wasn’t with them.

♦ R-Truth got tricked into thinking Akira Tozawa had been eaten by a shark by a letter saying so and a gift of his black belt. While Truth was lamenting the loss Tozawa crawled out from under a table and pinned him for the 24/7 title. Drew Gulak pinned Tozawa. R-Truth pinned Gulak and ran off. They have a triple-threat later.

♦ After a recap of Seth Rollins ridiculous paternity accusations against Rey Mysterio about his daughter, and Aalyah getting upset with Rey calling her naïve, there was a backstage meeting between Rollins and Murphy. Rollins was acting like he hasn’t beaten on and abandoned Murphy at every opportunity recently and sent him to put on a suit he bought him. When he left Rollins expression hardened. Murphy had left his phone behind and Rollins pocketed it.

♦ Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler hosted Kings Court with the Mysterio family as his guests. Rey has no doubt his kids are his. He and his wife have worked hard to build a strong and loving family and the kids have been their lives since the moment they were born. Dominik said this has gone on long enough and next time he sees him he’s going to put an end to it.

Lawler asked about Aalyah being upset by Rey saying she was naïve and knows nothing about their world. He brought up her talking to Murphy.

She’s still a little upset. Her parents have a certain image of her, but she is 19. Murphy approached her and sat with her, she didn’t go looking for him and she’s not sure what to think of him. But anyone associating themselves with Seth Rollins needs to re-evaluate their life choices because Seth is a really bad person and a fraud.

Rollins appeared on the big screen and said he knows he’s the last person they wanted to see but what he has to say is important. One of them isn’t being a hundred percent honest with the family. Aalyah might not be telling the truth about how she feels about Murphy. He showed some DM’s between the two, then left them to it.

Aalyah shouted at Rey that Murphy’s not like Seth and walked out. Her parents followed. Dominik didn’t.

The cameras cut back to Seth, who was arguing with Murphy. Murphy was angry and had Rollins by the lapels when Dominik arrived. It was Murphy taking the brunt of Dominik’s anger this time. They had to be pulled apart by officials. They have a match later.

♦ Natalya and Lana are not impressed that Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler haven’t been stripped of the tag titles. Somehow, they have decided the titles belong to them and only exist because of them. Adam Pearce came out and told them that wasn’t going to happen, Jax and Baszler will defend against The Riott Squad as planned, once they are cleared. But he offered them a match to increase their chances of a future title shot, against RAW’s newest roster members, Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke. We knew Rose was on her way, but Brooke is a surprise.

Natalya & Lana vs Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke was fine. Dana Brooke got to show off a bit and took some punishment, as much as you can in a three-minute tag match. Mandy Rose got to come in and save the day. She pinned Lana off a knee to the face.

♦ Aleister Black feels let down and betrayed by Kevin Owens and he won’t forget. That’s why he’s been attacking Owens, and that’s why we got Kevin Owens vs Aleister Black tonight. He’s not wearing the eye covering anymore, but the eye still looks messed up. It played out like a grudge match, and a good grudge match at that. Kevin Owens landed a cannonball off the apron to Black, right in front of the announce desk, which looked brutal. Black got in trouble twice for using the whole five count in the corner or the ropes and got in the ref’s face both times. When the ref got in the way of Black’s elbow swinging back when he was punching Owens, he disqualified Black. While Black was arguing about it, to no avail because the referee’s decision is final, Kevin Owens delivered a stunner.

♦ The Street Profits joined the legends backstage. Ric Flair was winning the game. Big Show commented that he could take up the open challenge.

♦ The Hurt Business, still without Cedric Alexander, caught Mustafa Ali coming out of their dressing room. Ricochet and Apollo Crews came to his aid before it could get nasty, but there’s going to be a six-man tag.

♦ R-Truth (C) vs Akira Tozawa vs Drew Gulak – 24/7 Championship match – was a fun and chaotic triple threat. At one point Gulak and Tozawa were both trying to submit Truth and ref Jess looked very confused. R-Truth retained with an AA on Drew Gulak and ran away because 24/7 rules are reinstated immediately after the bell.

♦ Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke will be on RAW Talk, but also got a backstage interview with Charly Caruso. They had a lot of nice things to say about each other and Rose made it very clear they’re coming for the tag titles. I thought they’d give Mandy Rose a single’s run after splitting her from Sonya Deville, but apparently not.

♦ Murphy vs Dominik Mysterio was a scrap with a bell at the beginning. It was great until near the end. Aalyah came out when Dominik got a kendo stick out of the ring and begged him not to use it. Murphy rolled him up and pinned him while they were arguing (if that was three, it was a fast count), so Dominik chased him with the kendo stick until Aalyah got between them. They argued and he said their dad was right and she is naïve. She slapped him and left.

♦ Dolph Ziggler told Adam Pearce he had the perfect guy to face McIntyre in the open challenge. They went off to talk.

♦ The Hurt Business vs Apollo Crews, Mustafa Ali, & Ricochet started with MVP sending a message to Apollo Crews that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. He said Cedric Alexander has been sent to Hurt Business Bootcamp for losing to Crews so he won’t make the same mistake again, but Crews just keeps getting beaten by them. Honestly, if he’d waited a minute or so, he could have said it to Crews’ face, but I guess that was less appealing.

A brawl broke out before the match then the ThunderDome went black and RETRIBUTION’s logo flashed up. They hadn’t shown up by the time we came back from the ads and the match was underway. Another really entertaining match. Mustafa Ali pinned MVP with a 450 splash.

♦ Ric Flair definitively won the poker game.

♦ Bianca Belair got another vignette showing her physical superiority. This time, it was foot races. She beat three people the first time and one walked away. She gave the two remaining ones a head start, and still won, so another walked off. For the final race, she did hurdles while her opponent just ran, and she still won. That’s great, now get her in the ring.

♦ There was a video package for RETRIBUTION, which was just their previous promos overlaid with a compilation of the destruction they’ve caused.

♦ Robert Roode answered Drew McIntyre’s open challenge, introduced by Dolph Ziggler. Drew McIntyre vs Robert Roode was an NXT feud for a while. Roode might have been regretting stepping up when he took the Alabama Slam onto the apron going into the final break of the show, but he was resisting a superplex by the time we came back.

Dolph Ziggler pulled Roode out of the ring to protect him, so McIntyre pulled Ziggler into the ring, leaving himself open to a chop block from Roode. That gave Roode a target and he smashed McIntyre’s legs into the post a few times just to make sure. McIntyre was having trouble standing, more so when Roode dropped him knee first on the announce desk. Roode slapped on a figure four to capitalise, but McIntyre turned him over.

It didn’t look good for the Claymore. McIntyre was really struggling to stand. Robert Roode kicked out of the Futureshock DDT. Ziggler took a kick to the face from McIntyre instead of Roode, pushing his friend out of the way. McIntyre kicked out of the Glorious DDT. Roode lined him up for another one, but Drew McIntyre got away and delivered the Claymore for the win.

♦ Randy Orton, dressed as a janitor and wearing a face mask, pushed a cleaning cart to the corridor by the Legend’s Lounge. He demasked and put on night vision goggles before he entered and turned the lights off. There was a lot of commotion in the blackness. When the lights came back in all the legends were down and the room was wrecked. Orton left and put his hood up and head down and pushed the cart away as officials flooded the room.

There were some notable absences on this week’s show, including RETRIBUTION and the whole of RAW Underground, as well as the ones missing from the PPV. It is widely reported that the absences are due to a COVID-19 outbreak within WWE, although some of the absences are said to be just a precautionary measure. Between that and the Draft coming up, everything feels extremely temporary at the moment.