WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 3/15: All Mighty Episode of Raw, New Day Vies for Tag Team Gold, Riddle vs. Ali for the U.S. Championship

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
MARCH 15, 2021
TAMPA, FL. AT THUNDERDOME IN TROPICANA FIELD
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton, and Samoa Joe

Match Results from Last Week

• Bobby Lashley defeated the Miz to retain the WWE Championship.
• Drew McIntyre and Sheamus wrestled to a no-contest in a no-DQ match.
• Xavier Woods of New Day defeated Shelton Benjamin, co-holder of the Raw Tag Team Championship.
• U.S. Champion Riddle defeated Slapjack of Retribution.
• Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler defeated Lana & Naomi to retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. Here’s Naomi & Lana in a WWE exclusive:

• A.J. Styles defeated Randy Orton due to outside interference from Alexa Bliss.

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This will be the last Raw before Fastlane, which takes place this Sunday. No matches are announced from the Raw side, but we know of three matches for Smackdown. Big E vs. Apollo Crews for the Intercontinental Championship was announced late Friday/early Saturday. Perhaps we’ll find out tonight if WWE decides to put out anything from the Raw side on what’s being billed as an “All Mighty” episode of Raw. Here’s what we know for tonight thus far:

• WWE Champion Bobby Lashley’s All Mighty Era has begun
• Riddle to battle Mustafa Ali in a United States Title Match.
• The New Day to challenge Raw Tag Team Champions The Hurt Business.

Bobby Lashley Reign Unfolds

WWE has advertised that tonight’s episode will be built around Bobby Lashley’s reign as WWE Champion beginning after retaining the title last week against the Miz. Two weeks ago, he defeated the Miz after getting the runaround throughout Raw, but finally defeated him in the main event, a lumberjack match. Here’s Bobby on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/fightbobby/status/1371218883605102594?s=20

Frank’s Analysis: I see him defending the title at WrestleMania, it’s just a matter of whom it’s against. In all likelihood it’ll be against Drew McIntyre, but he and Sheamus knocked each other out in their no-DQ match. They could be involved in a match at Fastlane, perhaps involving Braun Strowman, to decide the challenger.

U.S. Championship: Riddle (champ) vs. Mustafa Ali

Tonight, Mustafa Ali will vie for the U.S. Championship as he challenges Riddle. Two weeks ago, Ali defeated Riddle in a non-title match after Riddle & Lucha House Party defeated Retribution (T-Bar, Mace, and Slapjack. Ali was frustrated with Retribution following the loss.

Riddle is early in his U.S. Championship run after defeating Bobby Lashley and John Morrison in a triple threat match at Elimination Chamber just under a month ago. Of course, Morrison took the fall and not the actual champion Lashley. Here’s Ali in a WWE exclusive:

Frank’s Analysis: I can’t get too serious about this when Riddle is such a cheap and defined-down champion. I’m sure the match will be good, but the outcome doesn’t matter. Holding the U.S. Championship means nothing as far as I’m concerned. It could go either way.

Raw Tag Team Championship: Hurt Business’s Shelton Benjamin & Cedric Alexander (champs) vs. New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)

Awwwwwwwwwwwww…Thunderdome! Don’t you dare…be sour…

Tonight, New Day will once again try and become Raw Tag Team Champions as they challenge Shelton Benjamin & Xavier Woods of the Hurt Business. The Hurt Business won the titles from New Day at TLC back in December.

Prior to getting back involved with Hurt Business, New Day had been involved with Retribution in a series of various matches. They last defeated T-Bar & Mace three weeks ago to, for the time being, put a wrap on that feud. Prior to Woods beating Benjamin last week, it was already known that the title match would take place tonight.

Frank’s Analysis: I’m sorry I can’t be more enthused, and I should be because WWE is giving me actual matches to preview. It’s just we’ve seen this match not too long ago, so it’s hard to get excited about it. This is another match I could see going either way. They were oddly teasing friction between Benjamin & Alexander shortly after winning the titles, but we haven’t seen much of that lately.

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!