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WWE announced the following matches for next week’s RAW
Bayley vs. Sasha Banks – The winner will face Alexa Bliss for the RAW Women’s Championship at SummerSlam
Finn Balor vs. The Drifter in a No Disqualification match.
Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollin vs. The Miz, Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel
As always, we will be providing live play-by-play coverage of next week’s show.
Here are the current betting odds for the upcoming WWE Great Balls of Fire event, which will most-likely change several times between now and Sunday.
WWE Universal Championship: Brock Lesnar(c) -1667 (favorite) vs Samoa Joe +700
RAW Women’s Championship: Alexa Bliss(c) -278 (favorite) vs Sasha Banks +170
Intercontinental Championship: The Miz(c) -278 (favorite) vs Dean Ambrose +170
RAW Tag Team Championship: Cesaro and Sheamus(c) +125 vs Matt and Jeff Hardy -189 (favorites)
Ambulance Match: Roman Reigns -137 (favorite) vs Braun Strowman +100
Seth Rollins +125 vs Bray Wyatt -175 (favorite)
Enzo Amore +175 vs Big Cass -250 (favorite)
WWE has added Brock Lesnar to the SmackDown Live event at the Joe Louis Arena. The event, which takes place on July 29th, will feature Jinder Mahal, AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Bray Wyatt, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, Baron Corbin, Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Apollo Crews, American Alpha and The Usos.
This will be the final event at the Joe Louis Arena. The venue opened in 1979 and will be torn down and replaced with the Little Ceasars Arena.
Renee Young revealed on Twitter that she would not be returning for the next season of Total Divas.
Nope I am not, but the new cast will crush it!! https://t.co/nSJu5tX7cO
— Renee Young (@ReneeYoungWWE) June 11, 2017
As previously noted, Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax has been added to the upcoming season. Filming is expected to start soon.
Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.
Russo says that he’s absolutely sick of the millennials in this world, who are completely stuck up and can’t take a joke. During the Alexa Bliss/Bayley match on Sunday night, Russo tweeted out joking that he’d let Bliss hit him with that pole. For the next few hours he was shelled with backlash online. He says that these people just take the fun out of life, and the world is going to be a scary place when these people have to run it in 10-20 years time.
Speaking about the Intercontinental match between The Miz and Dean Ambrose, Russo thought these two guys did a poor job of making the match feel realistic. Most fans look right past these subtleties, but there were a couple occasions during the match where one of them stood still and let the other attack them when it was obvious they could have moved (Daniel Bryan kick spot for example).
He says that with the rise of MMA and legitimate fights, it’s almost as if wrestling has gone the opposite direction and has become less believable. Russo also says that the finish of this match was poorly executed, with the referee taking an awfully long time before making a decision to disqualify Ambrose. This allowed Miz to attack Ambrose from behind and pick up the pin-fall win.
WWE is already trying to forget the “This Is Your Life” segment took place on Monday’s episode of RAW featuring Alexa Bliss and Bayley.
In the YouTube highlights for Monday’s show, WWE only posted part of the segment which shows Bayley walking down to the ring to confront Bliss. The company titled the video segment, “Alexa Bliss takes Bayley on a painful trip down Memory Lane” with no reference at all to “This Is Your Life.” They even deleted Twitter footage that they were posting during the show, trying to forget that it even happened.
The segment drew fierce criticism from fans on social media and even those in the arena tried to hijack it with “delete” chants.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Emma is expected to be cleared to return to action in June.
As previously noted, Emma suffered a shoulder injury at a WWE Live Event on May 7th in Liverpool, England while she was teaming with Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax to take on the team of Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Mickie James. Emma took a bad landing on her right shoulder after a double knee drop from Sasha on the turnbuckle. The match was stopped early as a result to the injury.
Coming out of Monday’s episode of RAW, Dave Meltzer mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio that the company is setting up a mix tag match that feature Alicia Fox and Noam Dar vs. Sasha Banks and a male partner.
Meltzer indicated that Banks’ partner will probably be Cedric Alexander, as Alexander has history with Noam Dar and Alicia Fox prior to his injury. With Alexander scheduled to return from injury on this week’s episode of 205 Live, it’s very possible that they set up the match as early as tonight.
In regards to the RAW Women’s Championship, Banks isn’t expected to be put back in the title picture anytime soon. Right now they are doing a program between Alexa Bliss and Bayley.
Taz opens today’s show by discussing Braun Strowman’s elbow injury. Taz says that he believes WWE made a mistake by showing Strowman in the hospital bed on RAW last night, as he thought it made Strowman look too ‘human’. He also doesn’t think that Strowman will be out for 6 months like WWE has announced.
He doesn’t think that Roman Reigns will win the Fatal 5-way match at Extreme Rules, because he believes Reigns will go right back into another match with Strowman when he returns from his injury. Taz thinks Strowman’s recovery time will be closer to 2 months than the 6 that WWE announced.
A listener calls into the show and says he enjoyed Goldust turning on R-Truth on last night’s show. Taz says that this is a ‘C’ angle, and WWE needs to have those angles in order to keep everyone relevant. He says that having captivating angles throughout the entire roster is what made the attitude era so successful in his opinion.
Another listener calls into the show and says that both Alexa Bliss and A.J. Styles had good years last year as rookies, and he wonders if that gives WWE the confidence to push talent quicker. Taz says that wrestling is a work, and Bliss and Styles had good years last year because the company pushed them. If WWE has faith in a performer, they’re going to book them to win more matches than they lose.
WWE announced on tonight’s episode of RAW that Dean Ambrose will defend his WWE Intercontinental Championship against The Miz at the upcoming Extreme Rules event. Here is the updated card for the show:
#1 Contenders Match for the WWE Universal Title
Seth Rollins vs. Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns
WWE Intercontinental Championship
The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose
The title can change hands on a count out.
RAW Women’s Title Match
Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss
Kendo stick on a pole match.
RAW Tag Team Championship
Sheamus and Cesaro vs. The Hardy Boyz
WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Austin Aries vs. Neville
WWE Extreme Rules takes place on June 4, 2017. As always, we will be providing live play-by-play coverage of the event.
