5 things that could happen on RAW next week
In a big contrast to last week’s horrid 25th Anniversary edition of RAW, WWE put on a very wrestling-heavy, enjoyable episode to follow up the previous night’s Royal Rumble PPV’s events. The Elimination Chamber event is set to happen one month from now, and two matches have been announced - the men’s chamber for a shot at Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania and the women’s chamber for the RAW Women’s Championship.
The new RAW tag champs retained their titles, as did The Miz, who held onto his title over Roman Reigns, who invoked his rematch clause only one week after losing his title. Let’s start by talking about my previous predictions.
- Brock Lesnar is still the champion but doesn’t appear
I completely nailed this one. Brock took out Braun and pinned Kane at the Royal Rumble, which was the obvious conclusion. Then this week on RAW, Kane and Strowman faced off in a last man standing match with the winner getting into the Elimination Chamber. That’s exactly what I proposed last week. One for one!
- The women’s Elimination Chamber match is announced
I came pretty close to nailing this one as well. The match was indeed announced and will be for Alexa Bliss’ RAW Women’s Championship. I said that Rousey or Becky Lynch would win the Rumble and it would be for the number 1 contendership.
I did say that if Asuka did win the Rumble it would be for Alexa’s belt, and that turned out to be the case. Another empty “first ever!” for the women. Asuka and Sasha Banks had a really good match, though, so maybe the events of this week are the beginning of things turning around.
I’ve been thinking for a month that the Rumble match and what WWE does after will be the gauge to see whether or not they are going to start taking the women’s division as seriously as they claim they are.
- Elias does nothing of importance
Well, he did end up beating Matt Hardy to gain entrance into the Elimination Chamber match, so he did something, so that’s cool. I was right about him being eliminated from the Rumble by John Cena.
That may not be the blow-off of their mini-feud, though. Both Cena and Elias will be in the Elimination Chamber, so Cena can eliminate Elias for that, too!
- Matt Hardy defeats Bray Wyatt in a rematch
I missed this one, but I did say that they would eliminate each other from the Royal Rumble match, and that did indeed occur. Bray cost Matt to lose his Elimination Chamber qualifying match when he distracted him, allowing Elias to pick up the win. I expect that the same will happen next week, with Hardy costing Wyatt his qualifying match.
- Returning to complete status quo
I think this was a bit of a hasty prediction, and I’m glad to say that I’ll consider myself wrong on this one. The show wasn’t perfect, but it was enjoyable and they started a strong build toward the Elimination Chamber match.
Overall, I was 2 for 5. I nailed the first two and the rest were decent guesses at best. What’s going to happen next week?
#5 Tag Team turmoil gets set up for Elimination Chamber
I think WWE is going to go with a big multi-team match for the RAW Tag Titles at Elimination Chamber. Seth and Jordan, if they get a title rematch at all, will end up getting their rematch on an upcoming episode of RAW that will see them lose due to more miscommunication if not a straight out heel turn from Jason.
I’d bet that after another victory (probably over Titus & Apollo), The Revival call out Sheamus and Cesaro, and other teams end up piling on until Kurt announces Tag Team Turmoil. The Bar will defend against Titus Worldwide, The Revival, Gallows & Anderson, The Miztourage, and Heath Slater & Rhyno.
Gallows & Anderson will win the titles, and if Jeff Hardy is healthy for WrestleMania, I would not be surprised to see them defend there against the Woken Hardyz.