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The Universal Championship is set to take center stage on tonight’s WWE Raw. What else is set to occur on the show?
Typically the Raw after a pay-per-view features fallout from the night before. But with Backlash acting as the first brand-exclusive PPV in the New Era, that’s not the case. Rather, the events of Raw basically live in a vacuum separate from those of SmackDown. Tonight, we’ll continue to see development toward Raw’s first brand-exclusive PPV since 2011, Clash of Champions. Specifically, it will revolve around new champion Kevin Owens and his quest to keep Roman Reigns out of his Universal Championship with Seth Rollins.
But as we all know, Raw is more than just its main event. There are plenty of other storylines that will continue to be woven in advance of Clash of Champions on September 25th. Cesaro and Sheamus are set to wrestle for the millionth time as they continue their best-of-seven series in match five. The New Day will also likely be given ample screen time as they build toward another title match with Gallows and Anderson. They’ll undoubtedly be looking to make up for the train wreck that was the “Old Day” segment from last week.
With so much on tap for tonight, let’s get into some of the more topical and interesting storylines heading into tonight’s show with our full Raw preview.
Is WWE Making Bo Dallas Great Again?
Last week on Raw, Bo Dallas was in a squash match, which is nothing new for him. The difference is, this time, he wasn’t on the losing end of it. For whatever reason, Dallas came out and promptly destroyed “Kyle Roberts” even though no one had seen or heard from him in weeks. After Dallas was reportedly arrested at an airport for intoxication, some may find it as a shock that he’s actually still on the roster. But not only is he still under contract to WWE, he’s apparently receiving some sort of push.
Obviously, this latest run for Dallas is still in its infancy, but it’s fascinating nonetheless. He admittedly looked like he was being forgotten about despite his status as a former NXT Champion, simply because his gimmick hasn’t translated well on the main roster. Then he was thrust into the Social Outcasts which screamed “jobber stable” from the very beginning. No one would have been surprised if he never recovered from that, and honestly, time will tell if he does, but at the very least he’s being given the opportunity.
Dallas has a new attitude now, so we’ll have to see if he continues to have these Strowman-esque squash matches to establish his new character. Hopefully, he ditches the “Outcasts” onesie, though. That ring gear is a reminder of a dark, dark time.
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Will the Women’s Championship Picture Be Clarified?
Raw’s Women’s division is on fire right now. Led by three of the four horsewomen of NXT, they can really do no wrong with Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and Bayley at the center of things. But while the Women’s title picture is a stacked one, we still need answers as to who exactly will be challenging for it come Clash of Champions.
Since Bayley’s call-up, she has looked like the obvious challenger. She made her surprise debut to a huge pop a few weeks ago and has been on fire ever since, racking up multiple wins over Dana Brooke and one over Charlotte herself. But Sasha has apparently healed up from her injuries much faster than expected, making things a bit more complicated.
As of right now, one thing is clear and that is that Sasha will be challenging for the Women’s title at Clash of Champions. The question is if Bayley will be involved to make it a triple threat, or if she’ll be out of the picture in some capacity, be it another match against Dana Brooke or otherwise.
Now that the Boss is back, we’ll see her first real storyline confrontation with Bayley since their time in NXT. And as we all know, that led to some absolute gold, so WWE is likely to double down on that success. The Women’s division on Raw is in good hands. We just have to find out who exactly will be spearheading it come Clash of Champions.
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Will Roman Reigns Fight His Way Into the WWE Universal Championship Match?
I’d like to apologize for earlier in this article where I called tonight’s show “Raw” numerous times. The name of the program that airs on USA Network Monday Nights at 9 P.M. EST is “The Kevin Owens Show” and it should be referred to as such. And with that in mind, the man himself, Kevin Owens, is set to be at the center of everything as he takes on Roman Reigns in the main event.
Since Reigns was cheated out of a potential title victory by Triple H two weeks ago on Raw, he’s been granted a chance to insert himself in the Owens vs Seth Rollins Universal title match at Clash of Champions. All he has to do is beat Owens one-on-one tonight. Will it happen? Only time will tell, but logically, it shouldn’t.
Reigns has all but ignored his feud with Rusev over the past few weeks. The two of them had a strange no-contest at SummerSlam and have yet to have a proper match for the U.S. title that Reigns was initially pursuing. Of course, the Universal title should take priority, but it’s not like WWE to just throw a storyline away like that. It seems fairly likely that Rusev interferes in the main event tonight to set up Reigns vs Rusev at Clash of Champions. After all, if the Rusev and Reigns feud really was dropped, then a new challenger would have to emerge for the U.S. title since all Raw championships will be defended at Clash.
All signs point to a screwy finish tonight, but it’s looking like Raw should be a pretty solid show with an extremely intriguing main event.
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