THE RETURN OF GOLDBERG!
By Tarron Coalson
One of the most eagerly anticipated MONDAY NIGHT RAW’s in recent memory comes to us from Denver, Colorado and while they were pushing the upcoming HELL IN A CELL pay per view, this night was about one thing. Would Bill Goldberg show up and would he accept the challenge put forth by Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar last week?
The show starts out with WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens and his “best friend” Chris Jericho, who come to ringside and accuse General Manager Mick Foley of being biased against Owens. They say that Owens doesn’t deserve to be in the same match that “ended Mick Foley’s career” and that Seth Rollins is an undeserving opponent.
Rollins comes out to the stage area and begins to play mind games with Jericho, asking why his “best friend” would leave him to get Pedigree’d two weeks in a row. Jericho, taking it personally, tells Rollins that he could beat him any day and Rollins calls him on the challenge. To make it more interesting, Jericho insists that Kevin Owens stay back stage during the match.
The match goes back and forth until Rollins climbs to the top rope and Kevin Owens music starts up and he walks out. Rollins flew from the top rope, hitting Jericho on the floor as the action continued. Finally, Rollins went for a Pedigree which Jericho countered into the Walls of Jericho. As Rollins tried to get to the ropes, Jericho walked him back to the center of the ring, surprising the crowd and actually making some think Rollins would tap out.
Rollins summoned up all his energy and headed toward the ropes a second time and Kevin Owens pulled the rope back so that Rollins couldn’t reach it. The referee caught Owens and made Jericho break the hold.
Rollins would eventually hit the Pedigree for the win and turning to face Owens as he hit it. Hopefully these two will have a better match at HELL IN A CELL than they did in their previous meeting.
The first of many promo’s with Goldberg is up next, this one featuring his WCW debut match.
It was announced that former WWE Ladies Champion, Lita would have a sit down interview with both champion Sasha Banks and challenger Charlotte as they get ready for their historic HELL IN A CELL match.
First of was Charlotte and the first thing noticeable was that Lita and Charlotte were calling her Charlotte Flair. Charlotte proceeded to say, “I’m a winner”, that she’s “genetically superior”, that she didn’t need the WWE Universe fans like Sasha, and she’s 12-0 in pay per view matches, although she did say “I’m the best & Sasha can be the best on any given day”
Following that is the Golden Truth and Mark Henry in a six man tag match with Titus O’Neill and The Shining Stars and you got the added bonus of seeing a bouncing Goldust head and the lyrics to R-Truth’s rap across the bottom of the screen. UGH. Ok, let’s play word association! Titus O’Neill, bad. R-Truth, OK, Shining Stars, waste of talent. Mark Henry, great career but sad to end like this.
Mark Henry did hit the The World’s Strongest Slam on O’Neill for the victory. With rumors going that Big Show and Mark Henry are retiring this year, it’d be great to see them have one last tag team run or a match against each other. When Henry was it full blown heel mode with the “Hall of Pain”, he was downright awesome! The Hall of Fame surely awaits for him and Big Show!
A promo with Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens is next as they’re arguing over Owens coming to ringside and Jericho almost calls Owens a “stupid idiot”. As they’re shouting, Stephanie McMahon comes out yelling over them, saying that Rollins is getting into their heads. She also brings up the challenge issued by SMACKDOWN last week for a RAW verses SMACKDOWN SURVIVORS SERIES match and tells them that she needs her two best generals to figure it out and get on the same page.
Up next is Sheamus, with Cesaro at ringside, going against Big E Langston, with the rest of New Day at ringside. It was a mirror image as Cesaro was on Facebook Live this time and the constant bickering and distractions caused Sheamus to lose in a hard hitting power match. The question remains, can Cesaro and Sheamus figure it out to become tag team champions in just two weeks? They do the match end replay from the Facebook Live WWE page, which was neat!
The second Goldberg promo of the night is up next. This time, it’s the undefeated Goldberg taking on WCW champ, Hollywood Hogan and becoming the first undefeated, undisputed World Champion. I do have issue with Michael Cole, who called Goldberg, WCW’s greatest World Champion. I guess he’s never heard of Sting or Ric Flair…
Bo Dallas is up next as his buddy Curtis Axel apologizes about last week and gets him a match with Neville. The newly aggressive Dallas takes out Neville and when Axel comes in to celebrate with his “friend”, Dallas turns on Axel and delivers a beat down.
I would love to see WWE do a story line which brings out the fact that Bo Dallas and Bray Wyatt are brothers. After all, they’re both WWE Legend Mike Rotundo’s kids. Dallas is using a modified Sister Abigail finishing maneuver. His new personality is somewhat creepy and it would give The Wyatt Family a presence on both shows. Will it happen? Doubtful, but stranger things have happened!
Dana Brooke is up next verses Bayley as they’re trying to feud these two ladies. It was a ghastly awful match. The finish occurred as Bayley hit her head on the ring cover metal and then it appeared that Brooke was supposed to pull her in thru the middle rope and use her legs on the ropes for leverage to cheat her way to a win.
Only one problem, when she pulled Bayley in, they were to far from the ropes so Dana was reaching for the ropes with her legs but couldn’t get there and the ref counted a clean pin for Dana Brooke. The crowd was surprised. The announcers said they were surprised at the clean victory but it sure appeared to be a screw up! Expect these two to wrestle again next week with Bayley getting the victory. You heard it here first!
The camera’s cut to WWE Studio’s where the always entertaining Paul Heyman is answering questions about his challenge to Goldberg. Heyman said he didn’t think Bill Goldberg flew to Denver to say no, but suggested he should re-think things. He also kept calling him “Bill” until he incensed the crowd to start the Goldberg chant. He tells Bill he should keep the fantasy of being a star to the video game.
Heyman is THE master manipulator of the crowd and he’s one of, if not the best ever manager to cut promo’s. He gets it in a way no one has since Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair in their prime’s. Just in case you’re interested, I must put Jim Cornette and Roddy Piper on the best ever promo’s as well.
Brawn Strowman is up next against three guys that WWE called the Mile High Trio, who together may have weighed as much as Strowman. There were a couple of impressive spots though. Strowman launched one guy over the top rope and about fifteen feet out onto his partners. One guy decided to try to run out and Strowman chased him down and brought him back to the ring. Strowman tried his version of the double dropkick, but it wasn’t nearly as successful as last week’s as he hit the guys around the belt line.
After the victory, he says he’s going back stage to find Mick Foley to get some competition, which brings out Sami Zayn. After a stare down, Strowman shoves Zayn out of the ring and walks off. After a commercial, an interviewer catches Zayn to ask him why he would challenge Strowman and he says because no one else would.
The Ravishing Russian, Lana follows next with Rusev to talk about family. Roman Reigns is always talking about his blood lines, so Rusev brought pictures and a story to his. Reigns comes out and insults Rusev’s family as Lana smacks him in the face and Rusev catches him with a Superkick and proceeds to beat down Reigns.
Usually, there would be a Reigns superman comeback, but not tonight. Rusev attacks him viciously and hits him with the steel steps twice and locks reigns in the Accolade on the steel steps.
The third Goldberg promo of the night is next. This promo is from Goldberg’s 2003 WWE debut as he came out and speared the Rock.
Another promo of The Makeover of Emma to Emmalina follows..
Lita sits back down, this time with WWE Women’s Champ Sasha Banks, who says she’s one hundred percent for her HELL IN A CELL match. She acknowledges that her and Charlotte have made history together and will continue that at HELL IN A CELL.
The Crusierweights are up next in a six man tag match as Brian Kendrick, Drew Gulak and Tony Nese face champion TJ Perkinks, Cedric Alexander and Rich Swann.
I said it last week and I’ll try again. WWE is taking the incredible build up that the Cruiserweight Classic had and killing it. Booking’s wrong. The wrong guy is champ. It’s just very disappointing to watch. The crowd’s not into Kendrick and Perkins. The push needs to be given to Cedric Alexander and Rich Swann!
The fourth promo of Goldberg is next with Goldberg beating Triple H for the World Championship. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember any of Goldberg’s WWE endeavors but they must have happened.
Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon announce that next week’s main event on RAW will be a Triple Threat match with Seth Rollins, Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens.
Goldberg is up next and the crowd’s waiting. He does his usual thing, walking thru the backstage area with guys clapping. Music playing, Crowd chanting and the pyro going brings out Goldberg for the first time in twelve years.
Goldberg explained how he signed with WWE and began promoting 2K17 back in January but that he “caused some uproar with recent comments” and mentioned Paul Hayman’s challenge. After teasing maybe and maybe not, he finally tells Brock Lesnar that “He’s Next” and that “He’s Last” and celebrates with kids and his son and wife in attendance. Goldberg verses Lesnar, part two, coming to a Pay Per View near you!
