WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 10/11: Bianca & Sasha vs. Charlotte & Becky, Drew and Big E Face to Face, King of the Ring and Queen’s Crown Tournament Continues

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
OCTOBER 11, 2021
SAN FRANCISCO, CA. AT THE CHASE 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

• Night two of the Draft took place. See last week’s Raw and Smackdown primers for results.
• In the opening promo segment, Smackdown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch revealed she was the number one pick for Raw. Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair (now of Smackdown) interrupted followed by Bianca Belair. A match was set up for later in the evening between Flair and Belair.
• Damian Priest defeated Jeff Hardy to retain the U.S. Championship. Jeff was interviewed afterwards regarding his move to Smackdown until Austin Theory interrupted. He attacked Jeff and took a selfie.
• Shayna Baszler defeated Dana Brooke. She was going to do a post-match attack on Dana until Doudrop came out.
• Humberto Carrillo & Angel Garza defeated Mustafa Ali & Mansoor.
• WWE Champion Big E & Drew McIntyre defeated Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode.
• Kevin Owens stunned Akira Tozawa after Tozawa interrupted Kevin from cutting a promo.
• Rhea Ripley & Nikki Cross (no I’m not calling her ASH, deal with it) defeated Natalya & Tamina to retain the WWE Women’s Championship.
• Goldberg & Bobby Lashley discussed their upcoming match at Crown Jewel. Goldberg said Lashley was dead. Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin attacked Goldberg.
• New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) defeated Shelton Benjamin & Cedric Alexander.
• Raw Tag Team Champions RKBro (Randy Orton & Riddle) brawled with A.J. Styles & Omos. Randy had called out Omos earlier in the evening.
• Bianca Belair defeated Charlotte Flair via DQ when Becky Lynch pulled Bianca from pinning Charlotte. Becky tossed out Charlotte and then gave Bianca her (I think it’s called) Man Slam. Sasha Banks made a surprise appearance and attacked Becky and Bianca, giving them both running knees. The show closed with Sasha standing over Becky.

Arena

WWE returns to the Chase Center in San Francisco, CA. for the first time since September of 2019, just under three weeks after the arena opened. It is home to the multiple-time NBA Champion Golden State Warriors.

Advertised Matches & Segments

Bianca Belair & Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch (Raw & Smackdown Women’s Champions)

Becky Lynch will defend the Smackdown Women’s Championship against Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair in a triple threat match at Crown Jewel.

A contract signing was to take place this past Friday on Smackdown between those women, but things broke down. Bianca attempted to KOD both women, but Sasha escaped. She successfully put the move on Becky. Later Becky signed the contract; however, we didn’t see the other women do as such. Earlier I noted what took place on last week’s Raw. We must note that on the October 1 edition of Smackdown, Sasha beat Bianca after Becky distracted Bianca while doing guest commentary. Charlotte arrived to attack both women.

Tonight, Sasha and Bianca will apparently put their differences aside and team up to face both women’s champions who are also apparently putting their differences aside. In last week’s opening promo, Charlotte noted that she made Becky relevant, taking her from Becky “Pre-Show” to Becky “Two Belts.”

Frank’s Analysis: There are a lot of moving parts and let’s be honest. This is just WWE putting on what appears to be a big tag team match and the truth is they will likely not deliver a finish or there will be but there’ll be a distraction. What is the point of watching the match? The action will be good, but that’s not really the point. In addition, why would Bianca and Sasha want to team up? Why would Becky and Charlotte want to team up? If I were any of those women I would go to management and say hell no, I’m not teaming with this person. What are you going to do about it? They won’t. The match will go on, or maybe it won’t, and that’s another problem? We’ll see in what way we have our time wasted.

WWE Champion Big E and Drew McIntyre Face to Face

I mentioned Big E and Drew McIntyre defeating Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode. Prior to that, they were face to face in the ring. Drew talked about having Money in the Bank cashed in on him the way Big E did the same to Bobby Lashley. He acknowledged Big E deserving the WWE Championship, but he wanted to challenge for it. Since Drew lost to Lashley in a Hell in a Cell match, he was not able to challenge for the title if Lashley was champion.

Later it was announced that they would go one-on-one at Crown Jewel for the WWE Championship. Drew is on his way to Smackdown effective October 22, the day after Crown Jewel. Big E is now a resident of Raw. They go “face-to-face” tonight.

Frank’s Analysis: What is a face-to-face? Is that the brother or sister of a contract signing? Cousin? Anyway, they’ve done a million of these. It’s either ending in a fight or a stare down or a brawl with others. On to more important things … Brock Lesnar is challenging Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship at Crown Jewel. They wouldn’t have Lesnar win the title and Drew win the WWE title and take it to Smackdown would they? Lesnar is a free agent, so technically he can take the title to Raw. None of this is likely, but I wouldn’t put anything past WWE. That said, I expect Big E to beat Drew since he’s leaving Raw and “has to do the job on the way out.” What nonsense. Again, the match should be good, but that’s not the point.

King of the Ring and Queen’s Crown Tournaments

WWE’s preview for tonight points out the brackets in both the King of the Ring and Queen’s Crown tournaments. On the Queen’s Crown side Doudrop is set to take on Natalya while Shayna Baszler takes on her opponent from last week, Dana Brooke. Zelina Vega advanced to the semi-finals by beating Toni Storm while Carmella advanced by beating Dana Brooke. They will go one-on-one for the right to go to the finals. Carmella and Vega have been partners on several occasions recently.

On the King of the Ring side former WWE Champions Kofi Kingston and Jinder Mahal go one-on-one while Xavier Woods takes on Ricochet. The potential exists for Kofi and Woods to go one-on-one. Sami Zayn advanced by beating Rey Mysterio while Finn Balor defeated Cesaro.

Frank’s Analysis: These tournaments are a consolation prize. WWE does not have big plans for anyone involved. Perhaps we’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I would be pessimistic about the futures of the participants involved here.

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