WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 10/4: Draft Night Two, Goldberg Returns

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
OCTOBER 4, 2021
CINCINNATI, OH. AT THE HERITAGE BANK CENTER
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Jimmy Smith, Byron Saxton, Corey Graves

Match Results from Last Week and Exclusives

• WWE Champion Big E and Bobby Lashley wrestled to a no-contest when Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin returned to assist Lashley, and New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) assisted Big E. Adam Pearce came out to announce that the match would restart later but take place inside a steel cage.
• Angel Garza (w/Humberto Carrillo) defeated Viking Raider Erik (w/Ivar).
• Reggie defeated Ricochet via DQ to retain the 24/7 Championship.
• Keith “Bearcat” Lee defeated Akira Tozawa.
• Damian Priest defeated Sheamus in a no-DQ, no count-out match to retain the U.S. Championship.
• Jinder Mahal and Veer & Shanky defeated Jeff Hardy and Mansoor & Mustafa Ali.
• After saying a bunch of stuff about … who cares actually … Karrion Kross defeated Jaxson Ryker.
• A.J. Styles defeated Riddle (Raw Tag Team Championship co-holder).
• Charlotte defeated Doudrop via distraction by Eva Marie to retain the Raw Women’s Championship. Later, Shayna Baszler would attack Eva whom WWE acknowledges will be out of action.
• Big E defeated Bobby Lashley in a steel cage match to retain the WWE Championship. After the match, Drew McIntyre came out and pointed his sword at Big E, indicating he wants to challenge for the championship.

Arena

WWE returns to the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN. for the first time since December of 2019. The arena opened in 1996 and is home to the NHL’s Nashville Predators. It has been hosting WWE events since 1997 including the 2002 Judgement Day and 2014 Night of Champions PPVs.

Advertised Matches & Segments

Draft Night Two

Night two of the draft will take place tonight, bringing about the end of the televised portion of the 2021 edition. Here are the key picks from night one which took place this past Friday on Smackdown:

To Raw from Smackdown

WWE Champion Big E
Bianca Belair
Edge
Rey & Dominik Mysterio

From NXT to Raw

Austin Theory

From Raw to Smackdown

Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair
New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)
Jeff Hardy

From NXT to Smackdown

Hit Row (Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Top Dolla, Ashante “Thee” Adonis, and B-Fab)

Announced on Talking Smack

Smackdown to Raw

Alpha Academy (Otis & Chad Gable)
Apollo Crews & Commander Azeez
Zelina Vega

Raw to Smackdown

Drew Gulak
Mace
Mansoor
Mustafa Ali

NXT to Smackdown

Aliyah

The rest of the roster gets drafted tonight, including former WWE Champion Bobby Lashley and Smackdown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch. Sasha Banks, Damian Priest, Sheamus, and others will find out their fates.

Frank’s Analysis: It’s really annoying when they draft a Raw champion to Smackdown. We’re to assume Becky Lynch would get drafted to Raw now that Charlotte is on Smackdown, right? I can’t see them wanting them on the same show. What do they do with the Raw title? Bianca is drafted to Raw now, but she’s challenging Becky Lynch for the Smackdown title in a triple threat match at Crown Jewel. That makes it obvious she’s not winning, which she wasn’t anyway, but it’s not the point. Anyway, there’s no surprise with Drew going to Smackdown, but we’ll see how the challenge to Big E last week plays out. Does Drew “do the job” on the way out from Raw? What a preposterous trope WWE uses that does nobody any favors and doesn’t even make sense.

Goldberg Returns

Goldberg returns to Raw tonight, likely to confront Bobby Lashley whom he challenged for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. The match ended when Goldberg couldn’t continue due to a knee injury. After the match, Lashley attacked Goldberg’s son Gage.

Last week, Goldberg spoke from his home and said he would do anything to protect his son. He went so far as to say he would kill Lashley.

Frank’s Analysis: Saying you’re going to kill someone on a wrestling program is dumb for obvious reasons. What’s worse is we’re going to have to see Goldberg wrestle again. If SummerSlam is any indication of what he could do in the ring, you’d think WWE would say is enough is enough. When Saudi Arabia calls, well, need I say more?

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