WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 8/2: Riddle vs. Omos, Nikki vs. Charlotte No Holds Barred, Goldberg Returns

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
AUGUST 2, 2021
ROSEMONT, ILL. AT THE ALLSTATE ARENA
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Jimmy Smith, Byron Saxton, Corey Graves

My apologies to the PWTorch.com faithful for not delivering a Raw primer last week. I was in the middle of my annual recurrent training for my day job. Once I’m down there in the “schoolhouse” as we call it, every minute of my time is consumed with studying and spending time in the simulator (or the “box” as it’s referred to most times). I had a good experience overall except for being delayed five hours getting down and three hours coming back. What can one do!

Match Results from Last Week and Exclusives

• Raw Women’s Champion Nikki A.S.H. opened the show for the first time as champion. Charlotte Flair interrupted, followed by Rhea Ripley (the last two champions), which led to Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville announcing a triple threat match at SummerSlam for the championship.
• Damien Priest defeated U.S. Champion Sheamus in a NON-TITLE MATCH (please with this Championship Contender’s match).
• A.J. Styles & Omos defeated the Viking Raiders (Erik & Ivar) to retain the Raw Tag Team Championship.
• Veer (w/Jinder Mahal) defeated Drew McIntyre via DQ when Drew gave a Claymore Kick with Veer holding a chair. Drew then beat up Jinder’s lawyer.
• Women’s Tag Team Champions Tamina & Natalya defeated Eva Marie & Doudrop in a non-title match.
• NXT Champion Karrion Kross defeated Keith Lee.
• Mustafa Ali & Mansoor defeated Mace & T-Bar. (Remember when Ali was the leader of Retribution? Remember Retribution? It was like last year at this time they got introduced. Aren’t you glad I reminded you of that? Oh yeah, and Raw Underground started around this time last year. Wasn’t that a hoot?)
• WWE Champion Bobby Lashley said he would not dignify Goldberg’s challenge with a response. He then defeated his former Hurt Business associates Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin in a … triple threat match? Handicap match?
• John Morrison defeated Riddle.
• Reginald defeated R-Truth to retain the 24/7 Championship.
• Charlotte Flair defeated Raw Women’s Champion Nikki A.S.H. in a non-title match.

Arena

Raw returns to the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill. for the first time since November of 2019. WWE has a rich in this building which opened for business back in 1980 and was originally the Rosemont Horizon. It was one of the three settings of WrestleMania 2 in 1986 and who could forget the 2011 edition of Money in the Bank. CM Punk defeated John Cena for the WWE Championship and “left WWE” in storyline at the end of the show with the title, famously blowing a kiss at Vince McMahon. On a recent edition of the VIP-exclusive show WWE Then and Now, I covered this event with PWTorch.com contributor and host of the Top Rope Nation Podcast Ryan Droste. We had an amazing time reliving this show and sharing our personal memories of watching the program and consuming WWE in general at the time. Go VIP at the Torch to hear this show along with all the great content that comes with a VIP membership. If you are a VIP and haven’t heard the show, check out the WWE Then and Now archives and get my show in your rotation!

Riddle vs. Omos (Raw Tag Team Championship Co-Holder)

Riddle suffered defeat at the hands of John Morrison last week. Raw Tag Team Champions A.J. Styles & Omos made their way to ring during the match after having a conversation with Morrison and the Miz backstage. To make a long story short, Omos took Riddle’s scooter and broke it in half to his disappointment. This caused a distraction and allowed Morrison to take down Riddle and hit Starship Pain for the win. They ran a post-match angle where Styles hit Riddle with a Styles clash.

Tonight, Riddle goes one-on-one with Omos. He hinted at Randy Orton’s return on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SuperKingofBros/status/1421188349738500098?s=20

Frank’s Analysis: A decent match with a distraction finish last week between Riddle and Morrison and you can pretty much say that about most WWE TV matches. That’s why the matches and wins & losses don’t matter. It’s all about the distractions and angles. That said, this looks to set up Randy Orton’s return and the eventual title match between the two teams seemingly at SummerSlam.

Non-Title Match: Raw Women’s Champion Nikki A.S.H. vs. Charlotte Flair

After the match between Nikki and Charlotte last week, Charlotte was interviewed by Kevin Patrick. She said no one was in her league. Nikki (the champion), said she could almost have won, had the confidence she could beat Charlotte and challenged her to match next week (tonight). Charlotte accepted and went to shake Nikki’s hand but beat her down instead.

Four days ago, the match was announced by WWE as No Hold Barred. It doesn’t appear that the title is on the line. Here’s Nikki on Twitter talking about pizza:

https://twitter.com/NikkiCrossWWE/status/1421439973220249610?s=20

Frank’s Analysis: I’m a New Yorker, but I love me my deep-dish pizza. So far, I’ve had Lou Malnati’s and Giordano’s. Anyway, pizza aside, this is another match between people scheduled to wrestle at a PPV. The champion loses on TV in her first match holding the title and how’s that supposed to be a good thing for Nikki? Nothing they have done with Nikki has made her credible and that includes her winning Money in the Bank. It’s a paper win considering every woman was distracted at the top of the ladders and she just waltzed up and grabbed the briefcase. She’s lasted two minutes with Rhea Ripley and Charlotte which proved nothing and logged a couple of distraction wins. Nikki is a paper champion and a small part of what they’re doing with Rhea and Charlotte and potentially Becky Lynch should she return. Once she loses the title, she’ll be down the card doing nothing but silly comedy until they give up on the gimmick.

Goldberg Returns

WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg returns to Raw after appearing two weeks ago and telling (yelling at) WWE Champion Bobby Lashley, telling him “I’m next!” Last week, Lashley denied Goldberg’s challenge as I mentioned earlier. Here’s some Twitter trash talk by Lashley:

You don’t belong in the same world as me, let alone the same ring. Get that close again, @The305MVP won’t be able to hold me back.

No thanks, old man.

#WWERaw @WWE pic.twitter.com/OcIL2e9j6t

— Bobby Lashley (@fightbobby) July 20, 2021

If intimidation is your game plan, you better find a better one. This is a fight, not football @Goldberg! #AllMightyEra @WWE https://t.co/29POvTAdJT pic.twitter.com/DYBgswNBdr

— Bobby Lashley (@fightbobby) July 22, 2021

Frank’s Analysis: Congratulations to Bill Goldberg on earning a WWE Championship match after losing to Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble. Drew subsequently lost to Lashley, has been beaten by Riddle on TV (which isn’t the end of the world, but still), and is embroiled in a low-card feud with Jinder Mahal. Everyone has traded wins anyway, so it’s not like they’ve built anybody up to be a credible challenger, so why not Goldberg? It’s not like they KNEW SummerSlam was on the calendar, right?

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