Raw airs tonight (Sept. 25) with a live show from Toyota Arena in Ontario, California. This is the fourth episode of Raw during the five week build towards Fastlane, which takes place on October 7.
WWE finally has a solution to its Cody Rhodes problem
Cody Rhodes has spent most of this year feuding with main event stars Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. The Brock feud in particular exposed a problem where WWE didn’t really have anyone else at Cody’s level to match him up with on those occasions when part-timer Lesnar wasn’t in the building. We saw it once again after Cody finished Brock off at SummerSlam; Cody Rhodes didn’t wrestle at Payback and still has nothing lined up for Fastlane.
However, after last week’s Raw, I think it’s reasonably safe to say that WWE has solved this Cody problem thanks to Omos Drew McIntyre. Cody and Drew crossed paths at the very end of the show, after Jey Uso turned down the Judgment Day and was getting assaulted by the group for doing so. McIntyre looked on from the ramp and did not come to Jey’s help, but Cody Rhodes did.
In the short-term, that angle can keep Cody on Judgment Day’s radar for weekly angles or matches on Raw. But in the bigger picture, it sets him up for a more important feud with McIntyre. Drew is a former main event star who once defeated Lesnar to win the number one prize in the company, so he’s a great choice for keeping Cody busy with top level matches on PPV until the road to WrestleMania.
Cody is set to kick off tonight’s Raw, where he’ll surely want to talk about the show-closing angle on Raw. Meanwhile, McIntyre will be a guest on Miz TV later in the show, where Miz will probably try to bring out his darker side. How will Cody and Drew’s paths cross tonight, if at all? Will Cody instead have to deal with Omos before WWE really gets things hot between him and Drew?
You’ll have to tune into tonight’s Raw to find out.
The rest of the title scene
WWE Tag Team Champions Damian Priest and Finn Balor defend the belts tonight against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. The babyfaces will likely need some help to neutralize Dominik Mysterio, Rhea Ripley, and JD McDonagh. Will Jey Uso get involved looking for revenge on Judgment Day after they beat his ass at the end of last week’s episode?
World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins is losing his mind and willing to do whatever it takes to get Shinsuke Nakamura in the ring for a rematch. That includes letting Nakamura choose the time, place,and stipulation for the match. It sounds like this is exactly what Shinsuke wanted all along, so his mind games have worked. How will he respond to Seth’s desperate idea?
Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley missed last week’s show thanks to an attack from Nia Jax. Assuming she’s back tonight, it will probably become clearer when we can expect to see Jax challenge Ripley for the gold.
Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER now has Tommaso Ciampa on his radar. Ciampa goes one-on-one with Ludwig Kaiser tonight, presumably on his way to earning a future title match with the Ring General.
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Chelsea Green and Piper Niven were taken out by Nia Jax last week. Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn have since explained that they are behind the curse of the women’s tag belts, so maybe Piper and Chelsea will need to pay a visit to SmackDown later this week. Will Zoey Stark and Shayna Baszler look for a rematch with the champs tonight, or do they instead want revenge on Jax?
Other stuff to keep an eye on
– NXT North American Champion Dominik Mysterio defends the title tonight against Dragon Lee. Mustafa Ali is no longer with WWE and will not be showing up on Raw to affect the outcome of this bout.
– After defeating Chad Gable last week, Bronson Reed looks to continue his dominance over Alpha Academy by beating Otis. They’ll go at it in a singles match tonight.
– We’ll hear from NXT Women’s Champion Becky Lynch on tomorrow’s episode of NXT. But what about tonight on Raw? Will she issue another open challenge after beating Natalya last week?
– Kofi Kingston beat Ivar last week. New Day and Viking Raiders were originally supposed to have a 2-out-of-3 falls match, but Erik wasn’t cleared. Is that match still going to take place at some point?
