WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 4/12: WrestleMania Fallout, The “Night After WrestleMania,” New Location for the Thunderdome, New Announce Team, Many New Champions and their Potential Challengers

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
APRIL 12, 2021
TAMPA, FL. AT THUNDERDOME IN YUENGLING CENTER
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Adnan Virk, Corey Graves, and Byron Saxton

Match Results and Significant Segments from Last Week

• Xavier Woods of New Day (w/Kofi Kingston) defeated A.J. Styles (w/Omos). New Day were the Raw Tag Team Champions at the time. Here’s Styles and Omos in an exclusive:

• Braun Strowman cut a promo ahead of his steel cage match at WrestleMania with Shane McMahon. He said whooping Shane’s ass will be not just for him, but for anyone that’s been called stupid. He then defeated Jaxson Ryker & Elias in a handicap match.
• The Miz & John Morrison vandalized Bad Bunny’s $3 million car. Later Bunny and Damian Priest talked about their match with them at WrestleMania. Bunny talked about how he respected many including the Miz, but not any longer.
• Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler defeated Raw Women’s Champion Asuka & Rhea Ripley to retain the Women’s Tag Team Championship. Ripley attacked Asuka during the match, seemingly turning heel ahead of their title match at WrestleMania.
• WWE Champion Bobby Lashley defeated Cedric Alexander in a non-title match. Cedric and fellow former Hurt Business associate Shelton Benjamin confronted MVP before the match, with Cedric saying he hopes Drew McIntyre kicks Lashley’s teeth in at WrestleMania. Here’s MVP and Lashley in a WWE exclusive:

• U.S. Champion Riddle defeated Mustafa Ali to retain the title.
• Drew McIntyre defeated King Corbin in match where if Corbin won, he would get the WWE Championship match against Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania.

WrestleMania Results Pertinent to Raw

• Bobby Lashley defeated Drew McIntyre to retain the WWE Championship. Here he is, saying he “silenced the crtics.”

• A.J. Styles & Omos defeated New Day (Xavier Woods & Kofi Kingston) to win the Raw Tag Team Championship. Here’s them celebrating their big win:

• B-B-B-Braun Strowman defeated Shane McMahon in a Steel Cage match. Here’s Braun with an “inspirational message”:

• Damian Priest & Bad Bunny defeated The Miz & John Morrison. Here’s Miz and Morrison, begrudgingly giving respect to Bunny:

• Randy Orton defeated “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. Bray was distracted when Alexa Bliss appeared on top of the Jack-in-the-Box thing at ringside and gushed out the black goo stuff as if she were an old car leaking oil. I called Pep Boys, but they were closed.
• Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax defeated Natalya & Tamina to retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. Natalya & Tamina won a tag team turmoil match on night one to earn the right to face the champs.

• Sheamus defeated Riddle to win the U.S. Championship. It’s Sheamus’s first reign with the title since 2014.

• Rhea Ripley defeated Asuka to win the Raw Women’s Championship. Rhea was to have defended the NXT Championship against Charlotte Flair last year at Raymond James Stadium until WrestleMania got moved to the Performance Center in the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s Rhea before and after her win:

Nothing Advertised by WWE

We are now past WrestleMania and can take a breath as we enter a different era if you will. NXT moves to Tuesday nights, so for all intents and purposes tomorrow night will be the seventh straight night of premium WWE product. In addition, WWE moves Raw and Smackdown and the Thunderdome to the Yuengling Center in Tampa, FL. The arena opened in 1980 under the name of the USF Sun Dome, and has hosted mostly college basketball and volleyball events. The 1995 Royal Rumble, won by WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, emanated from this arena as well. Tonight’s edition of Raw is the traditional “night after WrestleMania,” which is traditionally one of the bigger editions of the year with returns and debuts. With no fans in attendance, it’ll be interesting to see how much WWE does in that regard.

Nothing is advertised as of the posting of this article, which is typical the day after a PPV. WWE did announce a change in the broadcast team. Adnan Virk will assume the play-by-play duties with Byron Saxton and Corey Graves returning to Raw. Virk has an on-air role with the MLB Network and co-hosts the GM Shuffle as well as Cinephile podcasts. He will retain those roles.

Samoa Joe will remain an “on-air talent” according to WWE. Whether that means a return to the ring for Raw or Smackdown remains to be seen. He could potentially be lined up as a challenger to either Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship or Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. Joe has history with Lashley in TNA (now Impact Wrestling), including matches at the 2009 Bound for Glory and 2014 Slammiversary PPVs. Joe and Reigns feuded several years ago culminating in a match at Backlash 2018. Joe was a suspect in the “who attacked Roman” fiasco in the summer of 2019.

It will be interesting to see who is lined up for Lashley as well as Rhea Ripley for the Raw Women’s Championship. A.J. Styles and Omos hold the tag team gold, and Sheamus is the new U.S. Champion. We are in for a night of new feuds and potential returns & debuts. I will have the pleasure of joining Wade Keller on his signature Raw post show as we discuss the show and take your calls and e-mails. I look forward to interacting with you, the great PWTorch.com readers and listeners!

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