WrestleMania 42 is just weeks away, and WWE continued the build to the biggest show of the year during Raw on Monday night. The show was bookended by segments focusing on some of WrestleMania’s biggest matches.<\/p>\n
CM Punk opened the show, attempting to deliver a vintage “pipe bomb” promo. Punk took shots at Roman Reigns, The Rock, Pat McAfee and TKO, the parent company of WWE. This was the first Monday in several weeks where Punk did not have a face-to-face confrontation with either Reigns or members of Reigns’ family.<\/p>\n
The show ended with a wild brawl between Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar as the two titans chose to fight instead of participate in their planned WrestleMania contract signing.<\/p>\n
CBS Sports was with you all night with recaps and highlights of all the action from Toyota Center in Houston.<\/p>\n
CM Punk attempts another ‘pipe bomb,’ takes shots at Roman Reigns, Pat McAfee and TKO<\/p>\n
Despite being expected later in the show, CM Punk came to the ring to kick things off. Punk mentioned that Roman Reigns wasn’t there before talking about how he waited to get his revenge on Reigns last Monday inside Madison Square Garden. Punk claimed that everything he has is the result of hard work and effort, while Reigns’ career is as “plastic” as everything else about him. Reigns, Punk said, had been gifted everything, and that his record number of WrestleMania main events is meaningless because if anyone else failed as badly as Reigns in his first eight main events, they’d be blackballed from the industry. Punk also invoked Vince McMahon, saying Reigns is “a nepo baby who ate dog food for a weird old man.”<\/p>\n
After a few shots at The Rock, Punk turned his attention to Pat McAfee after McAfee’s attack on Cody Rhodes on SmackDown. Punk said if McAfee wants to talk about WrestleMania ticket sales, to call his manager (TKO Group Holdings executive chairman Ari Emanuel) and tell him to lower the prices. Punk made one more comment about dropping those ticket prices so that families can afford to come see him snap Reigns’ neck.<\/p>\n
It’s always a matter of personal taste, but these “worked shoot” promos very rarely work for me. Discussing business, ticket sales and executives as a part of a build to a match ruins the suspension of disbelief in a way almost nothing else in professional wrestling can. That said, Punk is always able to deliver a promo with conviction that few else can, so Monday’s venture into the worked shoot world was better than the mess that happened on SmackDown this past Friday. Grade: C+<\/p>\n
What else happened on WWE Raw?Austin Theory def. LA Knight via pinfall with a schoolboy pin. IShowSpeed, who earlier had begged Danhausen to lift his curse, was shoved into Knight by Logan Paul during the match. Speed attempted to leave, but The Usos blocked his way at the top of the entrance ramp. As Speed ran from The Usos and Knight, the distraction allowed Theory to get the quick pin. After the match, Knight told Adam Pearce to make a six man tag for WrestleMania with himself and The Usos taking on Knight, Paul and Speed, which Pearce made official.Dominik Mysterio attacked Finn Balor before Balor’s scheduled match with JD McDonagh. While Balor was briefly able to fend off Mysterio and McDonagh, the numbers eventually took over and Balor was laid out.Becky Lynch interrupted a sit-down interview with AJ Lee. The pair exchanged words before Lee walked off by telling Lynch that Lynch’s own daughter would say that her favorite wrestler is Lee.Bayley def. Lash Legend via pinfall with a crossbody. Lyra Valkyria grabbed Legend’s foot on a superplex attempt and then held Legend’s foot down to prevent her from kicking out of the pin.Je’Von Evans, Penta & Dragon Lee def. El Grande Americano, Rayo Americano & Bravo Americano via pinfall when Evans hit Bravo with an OG Cutter. After the match, Rey Mysterio came to the ring to congratulate Penta on his accomplishments before announcing that he was joining the WrestleMania ladder match.Seth Rollins and Gunther briefly brawled. Rollins was out to address Gunther’s attack and their WrestleMania match and said he can only assume Gunther entered into a business arrangement with Paul Heyman. Gunther snuck into the ring and the two exchanged a few moves before being separated. Backstage, Heyman shook Gunther’s hand and said he owes him a big thank you, Gunther said that the situation with Rollins is personal, just not in the way Rollins thinks. Gunther then said Heyman owes him much more than a thank you, making it clear they have no arrangement.Iyo Sky & Rhea Ripley def. B-Fab & Michin via pinfall when Sky rolled up B-Fab. Jade Cargill attacked Ripley during the match, though Sky still got the win. Cargill continued her attack after the match, taking out Sky and then hitting Sky with multiple kendo stick shots before hitting Jaded as Ripley was forced to watch while held by B-Fab and Michin.Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi brawled\u00a0to end the show. The pair were supposed to be participating in a contract signing, but Lesnar attacked as soon as Femi attempted to step into the ring. Femi lifted Lesnar and slammed him into the ring post before the men went back into the ring where they went through a table while fighting, with Femi ending up on top dropping punches. As security and WWE officials separated the men, Lesnar broke free and jumped onto Femi, with Femi doing the same moments later. After throwing chairs at each other, the men were finally separated as the show went off the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WrestleMania 42 is just weeks away, and WWE continued the build to the biggest show of the year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,13015,224271,63607,224270,224272,63608,63606,224273],"class_list":{"0":"post-587956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-wwe","12":"tag-wwe-raw-grades","13":"tag-wwe-raw-location","14":"tag-wwe-raw-results","15":"tag-wwe-raw-review","16":"tag-wwe-raw-spoilers","17":"tag-wwe-raw-start-time","18":"tag-wwe-raw-winners"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}