Monday Night RAW Highlights
RAW kicked off with a two-hour long Gauntlet match. And oh my god, it was incredible. It could have been the whole show and I think it’d still be good. For those who don’t know, a gauntlet match starts with two Superstars in the ring and they fight until one eliminates the other through pin-fall, count-out, etc. Then another person comes out to fight the person who won. This gauntlet match was between all the men who will be in the seven-man Elimination Chamber match on Sunday. Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins started the match off. This portion of the match was 30 minutes and Rollins came out on top. Who else comes in next but John Cena? There were so many times during this segment where the outcome looked doubtful for Rollins, but despite Attitude Adjustment after Attitude Adjustment, Rollins would continue kicking out at two and a half seconds. Finally, Seth rolled through another Cena AA and reversed it, hitting Cena with a Curb-stomp and pinning him for the win. After 35 grueling minutes, Rollins put down Cena and “The Drifter” Elias ran out. Elias tried a series of quick-pins that all failed since he had taped-up, injured ribs from Braun Strowman last week, but Rollins also was favoring an injured knee. After a couple of minutes, Elias hit the Drift Away finisher, and Seth was done after over an hour’s worth of ringtime. Rollins got a standing ovation. The amount of love being shown toward him was genuine. As it turns out, Rollins spent more time in the ring than any Superstar in RAW’s 25-year history. After he was eliminated, Finn Balor came in and defeated Elias. We heard many “We Want Rollins” chants. Finn Balor then had to face The Miz, who defeated Balor after the Miztourage faked him out by charging him. Miz knew what was coming next though and tried to run away from the ring, but Braun Strowman came running down the ring at him to drag him to their match. Not shockingly, Strowman hit Miz with a running powerslam and won the match, then declared that Brock Lesnar would “get these hands” at WrestleMania 34.
SmackDown Live! Highlights
#1 – Baron Corbin faced WWE Champion AJ Styles, who he had defeated two times before, but his luck seemed to run out this week. Styles managed to take the Lone Wolf down with a Phenomenal Forearm. After the match, KO and Sami Zayn ambushed Styles and left him laying by the ring. However, Corbin had recovered from his loss and hit Zayn with an End of Days, along with Kevin Owens who came in to try and save his friends.
#2 – Kevin Owens defeated Dolph Ziggler, who recently returned after a multi-week absence. As usual, Sami Zayn ran out to interfere and gave KO the advantage. Owens, however, seemed uneasy about the assist from Zayn.