WWE Raw 4-18-16

Dean's theme hits to start Raw with the Ambrose Asylum. He makes some bad jokes and then the rebel badass introduces Richie Rich. He kind of limped for a second last week. Now he's officially 100% fine, and "an outpouring of support on social media" is the new 'fuck you, we'll do what we want' for on-air wackiness. They yammer on and on and on before Kevin Owens comes out and saves things. He says that Raw is the same as ever - a McMahon is running around drunk with power, and Sami's riding his coattails and has been for a decade. The fans sing his WWE theme as he walks down the aisle Sami says he made it to NXT first, while Owens says he got to Raw first. Jericho comes out and says he doesn't like Shane and never has - but he's the best. Dean tells them to be careful around the plant - which is the one good line they've done so far. Shane makes Jericho-Dean and Owens-Zayn for Payback.

Sami-Jericho is up now. They have a pretty fun match going on here. Jericho is slowing things down, but Sami is working to Jericho's pace and not too much faster. Flip dive for an ad break. Excellent torpedo DDT leads to Sami just dropping his face to the announce table in joy. What a great babyface. Back in the ring, he eats an eye rake and a codebreaker and loses...again.

Mauro chats with AJ before Karl and Luke and they ask to leave so they can relive their wild nights in Rappongi - with AJ telling them to be quiet. This ruled! Their history was brought up and "the band is back together". Enzo picks THIS WEEK to cosplay Nakamura. Enzo has amusing riddles and says they're A cups cuz they're real whether you like 'em or not. Also "there's 'dud' in the dudleys - "dey a couple hataz!" Not much to this. Zo and Cass win with their finish - not much of a showcase for them in-ring, but Enzo came off like a megastar on the mic.

BOOO Dog comes out. He isn't a good guy or bad guy - HE'S THE GUY. It's the new I'M NOT A MAN...deal. JBL goes overboard hyping up how anticipated this AJ-Roman match is. Great promo exchange here with AJ shining and Roman...saying things. Karl and Luke jump Roman, but AJ looks surprised.

 

 Baron squashes Fandago, before Dolph jumps him like a coward - but Baron beats his ass anyway. Miz TV is next. Backstage, a soda is spilled - so she has some goober put his jacket over the spill. Maryse in lingerie is quite the sight. Miz is a lucky man.  Miz and Maryse come out and brag a bit before Cesaro comes out in his suit getup. Miz recites lines from Taken poorly - which I think makes this better. Cesaro, while chewing gum, says he'll quote Piper and say he's here to chew bubblegum and kick ass - and he's all out of bubblegum. Cesaro wants to fight Miz now, but Miz says he has a match with Rusev.

Rusev comes out, as do the whole team and then...New Day comes out and Cesaro just happened to be wearing a New Day shirt underneath his suit. As ya do. Crazy pop for New Day, and Cole's voice is gone. Pretty fun match here. Uppercut train! Cesaro wins! Mauro meets with Ric and Charlotte backstage and we get clips of last week. Charlotte points out that Nattie had to beat her to win and um. Well. She is. A lo-ser. More bad acting with Nattie. Ugh. Anyway, at Payback, Bret will be in Nattie's corner while Flair will be in Charlotte's.

Nattie, Becky, Paige, and Sasha are out to face Team BAD, Summer, and Charlotte. Nothing match here, and everyone does their moves before Nattie wins by making Charlotte tap to the sharpshooter.Vaudevillains beat Usos with the Whirling Dirvish. They go overboard calling this a NEW ERA over and over. In a VERY NATURAL AND ORGANIC SEGMENT, Cole asks Byron what he thinks of when he thinks of Apollo Crews and then Byron says generic words and Cole throws to a video package. "The Social Outcasts are in a big match!" is clearly a lie - and Heath gets beaten by Crews.

Owens comes out to face Dean in the main event, which feels like it was made this morning. Pretty good match technically. Standard house show match for most of it beyond the frog splash off the apron the floor. A JBL chant breaks out. A rollthrough into a Dirty Deeds wins it. Jericho jumps Dean and hits a Codebreaker.


Screenshot gallery -
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