We are just one day removed from WrestleMania 40 and already we're witnessing the insane aftermath of one of the greatest main events in WrestleMania history.
Although the Bloodline saga is officially over, WWE is not done with the feud between Cody Rhodes and The Rock. It appears the two are on a collision course for the Universal Championship, but we still do not know when that will be.
There were many questions that need answering, and Monday Night RAW did a great job of answering more than a few. Chad Gable and Sami Zayn will, in fact, fight for the Intercontinental Championship. Liv Morgan has not forgotten her beef with Rhea Ripley. Awesome Truth seems to be here to stay as the RAW Tag Team Champs. It was a great show to help us all cool down from WrestleMania while still getting fans excited for what the future holds.
There were too many questions to answer in just one RAW. However, there are clearly many great storylines to look forward to. Here's everything that happened in the 2024 RAW after Mania from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
WWE News:WWE is officially in a new era, and it has its ‘quarterback’: Cody Rhodes
The winner of this match would get a shot against Damian Priest for the World Heavyweight Championship. So, with that in mind, you could imagine the motivation running through Drew McIntyre's veins after he won that very championship, only to lose it to a successful Money in the Bank cash-in five minutes later. His adversaries were not to be taken lightly though.
Jey Uso is always an obvious threat. Ricochet is a great athlete and can do some serious damage. And Reed, of course, is fresh off a victory at the Andre the Giant Battle Royal. Reed proved to be the most dangerous competitor out the gate. He landed strong hits on both Jey Uso and Ricochet, commanding the center of the ring while everyone else was forced to do most of their fighting outside the ring.
It took a series of blows from McIntyre as well as a few super kicks and a spear from Jey Uso to get Reed off his game. Still, Reed was nearly able to win with a cover on Ricochet after all that. Ricochet would get his revenge soon after though, landing a splash on Reed on the announcer's table.
That splash put both Reed and Ricochet out of commission. The fight was officially down to McIntyre and Jey Uso. McIntyre had victory in his sight, but a surprise appearance from CM Punk prevented McIntyre from landing the finishing blow and gave Uso the edge, and he would walk away victorious.
Backstage, we saw the aftermath of Chad Gable and Sami Zayn's victory over Imperium. It was clear that Zayn and Gable had chemistry as teammates, but they will not be teaming up. Rather, the two will fight for the Intercontinental Championship as many people anticipated.
Zayn is paying Gable's favor forward and giving him exactly what he wants. They'll fight for the Intercontinental Championship next week.
After being held out of WrestleMania 40, Chelsea Green had some harsh words for RAW general manager Adam Pearce. She wanted respect, and she wanted her time to shine. Well, Pearce offered her a chance, and told her to head to the ring immediately. Unfortunately for Green, Jade Cargill -- who helped Naomi and Bianca Belair defeat Damage CTRL in a six-woman tag team match at WrestleMania -- was her opponent.
Green immediately started asking for officials to cut the match. She was clearly terrified, and Jade Cargill managed to take Green down in less than 30 seconds.
It wasn't even a contest. Although she hasn't been with WWE long, she has shown immense prowess. She was a star in AEW, and she looks headed for superstardom in WWE as well.
Sami Zayn wasted no time giving praise to WWE fans and all the people who helped him win against Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship. Zayn wanted to give a special thanks to Chad Gable, even motioning to the entrance for him to come out. Instead of Gable though, Gunther's lackeys -- Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci -- entered to berate Zayn and "make this right." However, Zayn wouldn't be without his own help.
Gable came in at just the right moment. Although many believe Gable will eventually turn on Zayn in order for a shot at the IC Championship, that wasn't happening tonight.
Gable put on a masterclass in this fight, landing blow after blow on both Vinci and Kaiser, even landing a splash on both members of Imperium outside of the ring at one point. Gable's technical prowess and athleticism were on full display as he rolled, jumped, and suplexed his way to an immaculate performance. Eventually, Zayn and Gable would join forces inside the ring and give us a great moment, suplexing both Kaiser and Vinci multiple times side-by-side.
Zayn and Gable would make quick work of their opponents after that incredible teamwork. Perhaps we will see the pair team up in the future rather than go at each other's throats like many expect.
Another debut, another NXT Champ. The NXT women's champion made her main roster debut in a fight against Indi Hartwell, who was accompanied by Candice LeRae.
The fight started off rather normal with both Hartwell and Perez exchanging blows, but the tide quickly turned in Perez's favor after LeRae pulled Perez's leg from outside the ring and helped Perez avoid a giant front kick from Hartwell. Hartwell and LeRae started to have an argument, and Perez took full advantage, swiftly dispatching of her distracted adversary with a kick to the stomach and a slam.
Perhaps we are even closer to the end of the Hartwell-LeRae team than we realize.
In the aftermath of Judgment Day's loss to Awesome Truth, Rhea Ripley asked Dominik Mysterio to go after the man who betrayed them at WrestleMania -- Andrade. Liv Morgan took the opportunity to attack Ripley with a chair, but the fight was quickly broken up.
While the tag team of Damian Priest and Finn Balor may have lost the Tag Team title, the number of titles held by Judgment Day remained the same over the weekend.
It took Priest a long, long time to cash in his Money in the Bank contract, but he did so at the perfect time, stealing the World Heavyweight Title away from Drew McIntyre just minutes after he'd defeated Seth Rollins for that same title. Rhea Ripley also maintained her title, the Women's World Championship, after defeating Becky Lynch in the first match of WrestleMania weekend. However, neither of those titles were the main focus of this segment. Half of the new RAW tag team champions, R-Truth, made his way into the ring alongside Judgment Day to rekindle his friendship with the faction.
Although R-Truth wanted to come back to Judgment Day, The Miz was less enthusiastic for such a move. The Judgment Day challenged Awesome Truth to a tag team title match, but R-Truth proposed a counteroffer -- a six-man tag team match, Judgment Day (Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio, and J.D. McDonagh) vs. Awesome Truth (The Miz and R-Truth) plus "a guy you can't see."
Almost everyone expected John Cena to appear after that statement, but this was a 2 vs. 3 disadvantage match for much of the match. Both The Miz and R-Truth took a beating at the hands of Judgment Day, but eventually help showed up.
John Cena's presence gave Awesome Truth an immediate advantage and the match ended shortly after. Awesome Truth and John Cena emerged victorious.
Shinsuke Nakamura had beefs with some enormous names prior to WrestleMania 40, including Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, and Sami Zayn. Now that WrestleMania has passed, Nakamura's first opponent was RAW newcomer and NXT Champion Ilja Dragunov.
Dragunov has held the NXT title since September 2023. Although it was his first appearance in WWE, the crowd was immediately backing him. Dragunov landed a few good licks on Nakamura, including a clothesline, but Nakamura is not someone to be taken lightly. Nakamura landed each of the first two covers, but Dragunov bounced back nicely, and after a torpedo knockdown, Dragunov was able to get the win, defeating Nakamura, a former NXT Champion himself, in his first fight on the WWE main roster.
A lot of people expected The Rock not to lay back so idly as his cousin lost the Universal Championship. The expectation was that Dwayne Johnson would be Rhodes' next opponent, and that the pair would line up for a title match at SummerSlam in August. That seems to be where we are headed.
Of course, the Philadelphia crowd wasn't just going to let The Rock say whatever he wanted. He wanted to say a lot, but the crowd just shut him down every time he opened his mouth for about ten minutes.
Once The Rock finally had the floor, he wasted no time throwing backhanded compliment after backhanded compliment at Rhodes. And it didn't take long for him to make his intentions clear. He wants the Universal Championship.
The Rock and Rhodes would end up exchanging belts for a moment. The Rock gave Rhodes his "People's Champion" belt that was gifted to him at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony by Muhammad Ali's widow Lonnie on Friday. Rhodes gave The Rock his Universal Championship belt, and The Rock simply replied "This feels right" before giving it back to Rhodes.
The Rock and Cody Rhodes continues to jaw at one another until the end of their segment. The Rock admitted that he had to leave WWE for a while, but promised that he would be back to challenge Rhodes regardless of whether or not he still had the Universal title.
Before Rhodes could get a word in, the crowd started chanting "You deserve it" at him. And by golly, it's hard to argue with them, given how good the belt looked on Rhodes' person. Triple H wasn't done there though. He had a surprise for Rhodes.
Triple H presented a video for Rhodes that probably made even the most hardened WWE fans shed a few tears. The video detailed Rhodes' story in WWE, Rhodes' relationship with his father and former WWE wrestler Dusty Rhodes, as well as the long, long road Cody Rhodes had to take in order to earn the Universal Championship.
No, no, no. I'm not crying. I was just washing dishes and got soap in my eye.
After such a large event that saw several of the biggest storylines in WWE come to an end, it made sense for the big boss, Paul Levesque, to kick off the first even after it all. There are new storylines that need to be told, new heels to create, new faces to push, and with all that in mind, there is no one else that WWE fans trust to put the best product forward more than Triple H.
Triple H started the night off by simply thanking the crowd in Philadelphia for making WrestleMania 40 incredible. After those pleasantries were done though, Triple H immediately handed the floor to the man of the hour, the new WWE Universal Champion, Cody Rhodes.
Time: 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT
Where: Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Stream: WWE Network
While there will clearly be a lot going down tonight, it is in the WWE's best interests to not promote their matches the night after WrestleMania in order to prevent people from seeing spoilers for the event. As of right now, everything we know is that Cody Rhodes will be crowned as the WWE Universal Champion, Damian Priest will be crowned as the World Heavyweight Champion, several new wrestlers will debut, and that The Awesome Truth will debut as the new RAW Tag Team champs.
Outside of those appearances, we can also expect the new Intercontinental Champion, Sami Zayn, to make a statement, which will likely be interrupted by Gunther claiming foul play. It is also very likely that Drew McIntyre and, thusly, CM Punk make an appearance to set up their rivalry moving forward. Seth Freakin' Rollins would also be a likely candidate for a segment. Although he is no longer a champion, Rollins participated in three matches during WrestleMania weekend, which means his presence at RAW tonight should be nearly guaranteed.
What didn't happen at WrestleMania 40, if we're being honest?
All but one major title, the Women's Tag Team Championship, was on the line during the event. Here is a quick rundown of every title match.
In an effort to build anticipation for WrestleMania 40, most of the matches and segments from RAW on April 1 were just hashing out the rivalries we saw this past weekend.
Although it is impossible to predict exactly what will happen, there are a few things that should happen in direct response to the results from WrestleMania 40.
For one, the Judgment Day should get an opportunity to reclaim the Tag Team title. Of course, now that the title is split in two between SmackDown and RAW, they can only go after one of the titles right now. It would make sense for them to go after the RAW title, setting up a match between Judgment Day and The Awesome Truth.
It would also make sense for Gunther to go after Sami Zayn again and perhaps ask for a rematch for the Intercontinental Championship. Of course, earning a rematch won't be able to secure a rematch so easily. He'll likely have to beat his way to Zayn once again, but who will step between Gunther and Zayn? With Shinsuke Nakamura, Bronson Reed, and now Gunther all having grudges against Zayn, there is a chance that three of them fight it out all for a shot at the IC Championship yet again.
Outside of those two predictions though, nothing seems guaranteed. Rhodes' next adversary is hard to pin down. While it would make sense that Rollins would be upset with Rhodes after Rollins backed Rhodes up and Rollins arguably lost his World Heavyweight Championship because of it. However, the two of them seemed to have no ill will toward one another after WrestleMania 40. Given their history though, perhaps revitalizing that feud could be the play for WWE moving forward.
WWE News:The Rock, John Cena, Undertaker bring beautiful bedlam to end of WrestleMania 40
2024-12-25 21:142252 view
2024-12-25 20:391308 view
2024-12-25 19:592811 view
2024-12-25 19:172759 view
2024-12-25 19:052711 view
2024-12-25 18:411116 view
The University of North Carolina has agreed to pay new football coach Bill Belichick $10 million a y
The four Grand Slams get bigger and bigger every year, but it’s possible no single event changed the
GRINDAVIK, Iceland (AP) — A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted Thursday evening for the sixth t
