At the start of Monday night’s episode of Raw, what seemed to be a fairly innocuous intro quickly went off the rails. When General Manager Kurt Angle announced that he would be presiding over the contract signing between Nia Jax and Ronda Rousey’s Championship match at Money in the Bank next month, he was quickly interrupted by Commissioner Stephanie McMahon.
McMahon’s first order of business was letting Angle know that she would be the one presiding over the Jax/Rousey contract signing. Of course, she wasn’t done: She also let Angle know that she felt he was being far too soft on Roman Reigns considering his recent behavior, including attacking Jinder Mahal backstage.
Reigns quickly came into the ring to confront McMahon, but he was thrown off by the sudden appearance of Kevin Owens, who tried to take advantage of the situation to gain favor with McMahon. The plan backfired—and then McMahon announced that Reigns and Owens would be competing against each other in the first match of the night.
The chaos was far from over, however—Jinder Mahal, still furious over Reigns’ attack last week, then interrupted the match. With Mahal and Owens on the offensive, Reigns got an assist from his old partner Seth Rollins, and the match was re-christened as a tag-team match between Reigns/Rollins and Mahal/Owens.
As former “Shield” teammates, Reigns and Rollins showed off their classic chemistry against the competition, with Rollins landing a brutal curb stomp on Owens to get the win. The victory was ultimately hollow: Mahal surprised Reigns by attacking him with a steel chair as he and Rollins were leaving the ring. Later in the night, it was announced that Reigns and Mahal would be able to settle their grudges in a match at Money in the Bank. However, knowing Reigns and Mahal, we doubt they’ll wait until then to continue this feud.
When the signing between Jax and Rousey finally happened, McMahon (who, let’s recall, is no friend of Rousey’s) tried her best to get a rise out of the two competitors to cause drama. Rousey, she claimed, didn’t deserve the title shot after only a single match in the WWE, and Jax challenged Rousey because she knew her size would give her an advantage.
After mostly stony silence from the two competitors, Jax had finally had enough and told McMahon that she’ll win before Rousey even has a chance to land her trademark armbar. Rousey responded in kind, telling Jax that at Money in the Bank, she’s going to take her championship…and her arm.
We’d say McMahon got exactly the kind of drama she wanted.
