RAW LD, April 30th 2018 - Diving Head Long into a Backlash

[FunKay]

Lord love ya' Titus...

Well we're back in the ol US of A after that weird detour to Saudi Arabia. On the RAW side of things Braun Strowman won the Greatest Royal Rumble, breaking the elimination record in doing so and capturing a nice giant trophy and a garish green belt. Whether or not he uses this to segue into something ahead of Backlash on Sunday remains to be seen, as does the overall importance or indeed canonical nature of the GRR. One thing we know will carry over is the new RAW tag champions; the Deleter of Worlds, the Woken Lovers, whatever you want to call them, Woken Matt and Reincarnated Bray are the new champs. With the Bar's monopolisation of the tag team title scene now over, what's in store for the tag division on Monday's?

Seth Rollins managed to steal a win in his first defense of the Intercontinental Championship, literally jumping in to snatch the title from Finn Balor's grasp. Monday Night Rollins is still a thing after last week's Superstar Shakeup, but he still has to attempt to keep the gold on Monday's as he defends on Sunday versus the Miz. You just know though that Finn's not finished with the Champ as their rather low-key, months long rivalry likely rumbles on. Meanwhile Jinder Mahal was unsuccessful in trying to recapture the United States Championship...that's all I have for you on that front.

And of course the biggest of dogs, the (alleged) wank pheasant and the perennial challenger for the Universal Championship, Roman Reigns yet again came up short against Brock Lesnar, spearing the champion out of the cage and thus losing. The ending looked rubbish and there appears to be some kayfabe controversy (presumably because of the rubbish nature of the finish). So unfortunately it does appear like we may very well see the most insufferable feud of 2018 drag its carcass into and, heaven forbid, throughout the summer. But who knows? Maybe this the dawning of a new day for both Reigns and Lesnar. Can the death grip this feud has had over the jam belt be broken?

Oh and there's of course a whole bunch of build to get us to the first dual branded B-show PPV of the second brand split...

[Jack-Hammer]

I'm hoping that things will get a bit more back to normal for a while now that the GRR is over. Of course, there are reports that WWE is going back there in November so, if true, there's no telling how that impacts Survivor Series. Might as well get used to it as the GRR was the first in a 10 year deal worked out between WWE and Saudi Arabia but, to be fair, it's entirely understandable. Vince was basically treated like a foreign dignitary along with pocketing what'll probably wind out to be an insane amount of cash.

As for Backlash, I'd rather they didn't even have the show but I know that's not realistic. Don't be at all surprised if Backlash actually turns out to be a newsworthy show whereas we've been endlessly raped by WWE with promoting the GRR event, where the most memorable thing that happened was Titus' epic stumble.

[SD619]

Sadly (but as expected), it doesn't look like we are done with Brock/Roman:

https://twitter.com/chadpattonwwe/st...74626578141185

[BaconBits]

They’re playing up the controversy angle. Fuck.

[BaconBits]

I’ve never really been a Roman hater, but seriously, it’s not working. Move on.

[Spidey]

Does he wipe his hands with his hair?? That grease.

[SD619]

"The hometown hero" Mahal...

[BaconBits]

I like Jinder.

[smarkmouth]

You think these boos are bad? Roman's going to have to deal with an apology from every fan he runs into after the show.

[klunderbunker]

The Reigns thing is sad now. In a funny way.