WWE RAW, 23rd September: Best match of the night

This week’s RAW was live from Chicago, Illinois and was by far one of the most exciting RAWs in recent memory. The show boasted of several unexpected events that made watching WWE an exciting prospect again.

Triple H, who stripped Daniel Bryan of his WWE title after he won it nine days ago, has given Stephanie McMahon an active role in decision making too. Both came up to the ring this week and acted in a manner that would have had everyone scratch their heads.

Hunter, who was so keen about suppressing any sort of rebellion by the bud, seemed happy that someone was standing up to their tyranny. The 11-on-3 handicap match put The Shield in serious doldrums as the owners had sort of taken it up on themselves to become baby-faces again.

Speaking of the matches on RAW there were a few good matches that took place this week. While there is no doubt that the main event 11-on-3 handicap match is the best match of the night a few other matches that were worth mentioning were RVD vs. Randy Orton and Del Rio vs. Kofi Kingston.

The handicap match was already an interesting proposition in SmackDown last week and everyone seemed interested in the match before Triple H interrupted it. The fact that we were going to witness the match again with Bryan as one of the members made the match far more exciting than before.

The excitement was high even before the match started as the Shield were about to capitalise on a lonesome Bryan in the ring. Before they could get their hands on him out came two men in black robes which people in a few moments realised as Cody Rhodes and Goldust. The two were then escorted backstage by the security guards.

The match started with Jimmy Uso, who immediately tagged Ziggler. Seth Rollins then pushed Ziggler to his corner and the trio started their strategic beat down on Dolph. After taking some hits, Ziggler tagged RVD, who was taped up after being battered by Orton. RVD hit a few of his signatures but was eliminated by Ambrose after a headlock driver.

After the break, Kofi Kingston had the upper hand on Rollins and Ambrose got tagged in. After a few hits back and forth, Ambrose pulled Kofi’s taped up arm and hit his finisher for the pin.

This was followed by a flurry of eliminations as the Shield managed to negate most of the mid-card wrestlers. They eliminated Titus O’Neil, Justin Gabriel and Zack Ryder in quick succession after Reigns speared each one of them. Reigns then got taken out by Bryan, who tagged in Jey Uso, who hit a superfly splash and pinned Reigns for the first time in his career to eliminate him

Back from the break Darren Young was in the ring getting beaten down by Rollins and Ambrose. Rollins then hit a flying knee to the head to eliminate Young. Ziggler then hit the Zig Zag out of nowhere to eliminate Ambrose.

Ziggler then tagged in Truthm who got taken out after he got his head driven to the mat. The Usos, Ziggler and Bryan then surround Rollins and beat him up. Ambrose and Reigns tried to interfere but got taken out as well, by Ziggler and The Usos. Bryan then hit the running knee after a flying headbutt to eliminate Rollins.

Bryan celebrated victory with others but the result of the match was inevitable with The Shield being clearly outnumbered. Triple H clearly needs some fresh recruits to handle the new rebellion, by the looks of it. Guess the weeks to come will give us answers as to why The Shield was booked in such a match in the first place.