WWE RAW Preview – 22nd April

Tomorrow night, we head down to London, to the O2 Arena for Monday Night RAW. And I’m more than just excited, because London has traditionally been one of the favorite places for WWE and professional wrestling in general. We’re still a couple of weeks away from Extreme Rules, and the card looks set, although WWE never gets time to build feuds up properly from one PPV to the other due to the time constraint involved. This is why I’m against 12 PPVs in a year.

Anyway, coming out of last week’s RAW, the main feud going into Extreme Rules is between John Cena and Ryback. In a comedy of events, Ryback tried to take the feud further on Twitter, and later had to delete all of his tweets. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what WWE does this week to make Ryback look like a legitimate threat for the WWE championship. Do I think he will win against Cena at Extreme Rules to become the new WWE champion? No. But I’m all up for WWE trying to make him look as threatening as he was when he debuted as the Ryback character. O2 will have a hot crowd, so that will only be a plus for the show.

We also have news coming in that Taker will be a part of the Extreme Rules card. That tells you the void Punk has left in the WWE because of his injury. Punk has been an irreplaceable element in the WWE for so long, that without his presence, WWE had to bring in the biggest name in the industry who performs only once in a year! Although I’m excited at the prospect of Taker teaming up with his storyline half–brother and Daniel Bryan, that would be one of the oddest pairings in the WWE, but will provide entertainment for the crowd, as well as increase the buy rates as WWE is pulling all stops to bring their marquee players for the PPV. Taker will team up with Team Hell No to take on The Shield. Will The Shield continue to play mind games on the Dead man? Or will Team Hell No finally put the Shield down before we make it to the PPV? We’ll get our answers tomorrow.

The other big name which will be a part of the Extreme Rules PPV is Triple H. Triple H had badly injured his arm during his match with Lesnar at WrestleMania, and even though he might not be 100% at this point, his presence will surely boost up the card. As I had previously predicted, their match was done at WrestleMania to leave a door open for a future match if WWE decided to do so, and due to Rock’s absence, they are using that option now. Although I’m not in favour of a re-match within one month, it will be interesting to see what WWE does with both the men. Lesnar might be done with the feud after Extreme Rules, but the way he destroyed 3 MB on last week’s RAW has picked my interest up once again. Will anyone else be a victim of the brute of Lesnar? Or will Triple H answer Heyman’s challenge? We’ll have to wait and see.

The Fandango revolution has picked up a lot within just 2 weeks. Two RAWs earlier in New Jersey, the crowd started something that has started a Harlem Shake-esque revolution, if you will. The ChaChaLaLa has since topped the charts everywhere, and has become a sensation. Going into London, expect the crowd to be loud all night, and even louder for Fandango. Last week, WWE tried to take advantage, but the crowd wasn’t into it. They made a mistake with the segment, making it monotonous and boring. Hopefully, Fandango will be involved in a match this week, and will give a chance for the London crowd to sing along the entire match. We will likely see a Fandango-Jericho re-match at Extreme Rules, and so, it will be interesting to see how Jericho responds to the recent attacks by Fandango.

Sheamus has gone back to square one with his feud against Mark Henry; Henry has already attacked Sheamus in the past 2 weeks. Will the Celtic Warrior prove his might this week? Or will the world’s strongest man induct Sheamus into his ‘Hall of Pain’? We will get our answers in a few hours. Also, Randy Orton is now involved in a feud with the Big Show. The talk of turning Orton heel has fizzled out, but that is a risk the WWE has to take to make Orton’s character interesting again. Although that will not happen any time soon, with only a few days remaining for the Extreme Rules PPV, expect these two to come face to face this week on RAW.

Dolph Ziggler had finally cashed in his MITB brief case to win the World Heavyweight Championship a couple of weeks ago on RAW. Now that both Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger are intent on capturing the World title again, things are heating up. A triple threat match has already been announced at Extreme Rules for the World heavyweight title involving the three. Will Dolph be able to retain the title? Or will he be just a transitional champion? What role will Big E and AJ play in this? Heading into this RAW, we have to wait and see if Dolph will have a single’s victory under his belt before going into the PPV. It’s always a good thing to have the champion going into a PPV with momentum behind him.

Kofi is now the US Champion, after an impressive run by Cesaro. Will Kofi be able to beat all comers? Cesaro would want his title back, and we might get a re-match this week. Also, Wade Barrett has captured the Intercontinental title back from the Miz. What will the Awesome one do to get one more shot at the IC title? All these questions will be answered on Monday Night RAW, from the O2 Arena in London. One thing you can be assured of is a loud crowd, which will hopefully improve the quality of the show. That does it from me for this week’s Preview of RAW. Let us now wait and see how it will unfold.