Tonight, on the With Spandex WWE Raw open discussion thread:
With a trio of blockbuster matches announced, Raw will settle one rivalry, re-team two former brothers-in-arms and determine Raw Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss’ challenger for SummerSlam. And while The Biggest Event of the Summer begins to take shape, Raw General Manager Kurt Angle begins his new phase as a father to Jason Jordan … and attempts to sort out the fallout from last week’s main event. (via WWE.com)
Our five-point preview:
1. First things first: this ISN’T the fallout show for last night’s pay-per-view, Battleground, because that was a Smackdown Live joint, obviously. No, this is the TRUE beginning of the road to SummerSlam, which we’ve been on for a while. Feuds will become clear! Rematches from last week will happen! Other things!
2. The Angle-Jordan Era will begin tonight, because nothing is important unless you can make an Era out of it. Personally, my favorite angled Jordans are the LeBron 13s, am I right?
3. The preview for this episode over on WWE.com literally asks, “Can Rollins and Ambrose co-exist?” If you’ve ever read one of our retro WWF recaps, you’ll know that the answer is “Yes, but not really.”
4. The preview at WWE.com is also referring to tonight’s No DQ match between Finn Bálor and Elias Samson with the header “Third time’s the charm.” So this confirms that WWE reads this site and is also trolling all of us.
5. Bayley and Sasha Banks will square off in a No. 1 contender match to determine who will face Alexa Bliss for the Raw Women’s Championship at SummerSlam. So congratulations to Sasha Banks, unless Nia Jax interferes and gives us a big ol’ multi-woman match at the second-biggest show of the year. Bonus points if Nia takes the piss out of the main event scene by hollering that she isn’t done with Sasha yet while she repeatedly mauls her.
As always, we’re including 10 of the best comments from tonight’s open discussion thread in tomorrow’s Best and Worst of Raw report. Reply to your favorites with a +1 to nominate them for consideration, and share the open thread around so we can get some fresh voices and jokes in here. Enjoy the show!
