The Man is coming around to Memphis tonight on WWE Raw, and she’s gearing up for quite the battle.
Becky Lynch is very much looking forward to stepping inside a steel cage with Trish Stratus this weekend at Payback, but before she gets there, she needs to deal with Trish’s mentee Zoey Stark first. And let’s face it, a Falls Count Anywhere match is a pretty great way of doing that.
The idea for Becky is to beat Zoey badly enough that she can’t run in and assist Trish in Pittsburgh on Saturday. But of course, Stratus can interfere herself tonight, so … we’ll see.
Where Lynch’s big victory is hopefully still ahead of her, Chad Gable arguably had his biggest win as a singles competitor when he beat Gunther last week. Alas, while the Intercontinental Championship was on the line, winning by count-out meant that Gable didn’t get to claim the gold.
Despite that, the fact that no one had beaten Gunther by any means in a long time meant the Ring General was humiliated in defeat, and he’s not going to stand for that for long. To that end, he’s assigned Ludwig Kaiser the task of restoring some honor to Imperium tonight on Raw, and we wouldn’t want to be him if he fails in his assignment.
Also tonight, The New Day is back together (though we’re still missing Big E) and has made it clear they want to make another run at the tag team gold they know so well. The problem for now is that they seem to have made enemies of the physically larger Viking Raiders, and now the Vikings want to get some revenge for a defeat at their hands a few weeks ago. So … yeah.
Michael Cole lets us know we’re going to be seeing some Terry Funk and Bray Wyatt tributes again tonight, which will be nice to see.
WWE Raw results from Memphis:
(scroll down for full details on any match or segment in bold)
- Damian Priest def. Sami Zayn by pinfall thanks to a distraction from JD McDonagh, though Priest isn’t happy about that and JD gets beaten up by Sami and Kevin Owens
- Drew McIntyre is examining a picture of himself in shorts designed by Matt Riddle, and though Akira Tozawa unconvincingly says he looks great, it’s clear the Scottish Warrior isn’t sold, and he only grudgingly agrees to watch the upcoming New Day-Viking Radiers tag team match with Riddle from ringside
- A hype video promotes the Rhea Ripley-Raquel Rodriguez title match at Payback, and has Raquel promising to cut Rhea down to size this Saturday
- The Miz is out to do his (not that shabby) LA Knight impression, and he insists that his Payback foe is nothing more than pandering, and that he’d prove it this weekend
- Viking Raiders def. The New Day by pinfall, in part due to
- Balor tells Priest they need to get it together, but Damian isn’t happy that JD keeps getting in Judgment Day business, and Rhea Ripley ends up yelling at both of them, promising “changes” if they don’t win tag team gold at Payback
- The Bray Wyatt tribute video first shown last week on SmackDown is replayed for the Monday night audience
- Riddle and McIntyre go to check on Woods, and though Kingston lets them know they understand it wasn’t on purpose and it’s all good, McIntyre vows to take care of the Viking problem next week and won’t even need to tag Riddle in to do it
- Gunther stands on the announce table and talks about how Chad Gable was the first person to beat the Ring General in more than 500 days, but says that Gable technically won nothing since he is still the IC champ; Gable has however pissed Gunther off, and now has his attention and focus, and also a title rematch next week, though Chad himself says he will win that one
- Chad Gable def. Ludwig Kaiser by DQ following interference by Giovanni Vinci, though Gable ends up getting powerbombed by Gunther after an attack by all of Imperium
- A short tribute video to Bob Barker is shown, calling him the best guest host of WWE shows ever
- Seth Rollins addresses Shinsuke Nakamura, but his anger doesn’t keep him from being attacked from behind again
- Zayn tells Kevin Owens how upset he is that they keep losing in crappy ways to The Judgment Day, and KO says that he got Adam Pearce to make their match at Payback into a Steel City Street Fight
- Tommaso Ciampa def. Bronson Reed by pinfall
- Becky Lynch says it’s not the easy way out to take on Zoey Stark in a Falls Count Anywhere match this close to Payback, but the easy way isn’t what she wants anyway
- Ripley cuts a promo on Rodriguez, admitting that Raquel is big and strong, but when it comes to Payback, she’s walking out champion; Rodriguez heads to the ring and they immediately start throwing hands before Raquel hits a fallaway slam; even with a distraction from Dirty Dom, Rodriguez is able to outfight Ripley
- Trish Stratus mocks Lynch and Stark promises to leave plenty left of The Man for Trish this Saturday, which is actually … what she doesn’t want to do?
- The Terry Funk tribute video from SmackDown is played again in honor of his passing last week
- Becky Lynch def. Zoey Stark by pinfall in a Falls Count Anywhere match despite copious amounts of assistance for Stark by Trish Stratus