Tonight is the last Raw before this Sunday’s Payback pay-per-view with the show taking place from the Sprint Center in Kansas City, MO.
Last week’s Raw provided one of the most memorable moments in recent memory in the main event between The Big Show and Braun Strowman, when Braun superplexed Show from the top rope and the ring collapsed.
The only thing advertised for the show is Strowman going up against Kalisto in a dumpster match.
There are a lot of questions heading into this evening’s Raw. Here are the four burning questions going into the final show before Payback:
1) Will Roman Reigns show up during Strowman vs. Kalisto? Reigns hasn’t been on the show since getting the savage beating from Strowman two weeks ago. He appeared on house shows giving Strowman spears through tables but didn’t appear on this past weekend’s shows due to the passing of his brother.
There are two schools of thought you could use here: Keep Reigns off the show to build the anticipation for when he returns on Sunday at Payback. That is how it was done in the old days of wrestling and is something which should be done more often. Or you have “The Big Dog” come out during the match this evening and attack Strowman to extract revenge and have the momentum heading into Sunday.
Knowing WWE and their way of thinking, option No. 2 will be the way they go.
2) Do any talents from Smackdown appear on the show heading into Payback? As of now those would people would include Kevin Owens who defends the United States title against Chris Jericho and Randy Orton who will face new Raw superstar Brayn Wyatt in a House of Horrors match.
Wyatt once again appeared on the Titantron on Smackdown after Orton had a confrontation with Jinder Mahal.
It would make sense for the four talents to be involved to keep feuds going, give fans the unexpected and put logic into why the matches are happening on Sunday.
3) Do you add to the women’s title match? In her first official match on Raw, Alexa Bliss became the number one contender for the women’s championship. Is it too much too soon though? Like with Charlotte on Smackdown Live, it looks to be too soon for a one-on-one title match against Bayley. A match like that should get a bigger build and not just thrown together with only 13 days to spare. It would be smart to make it a four-way like Wrestlemania and add Sasha Banks and Nia Jax.
4) Can Booker T improve? On last week’s show, the former WCW world champion made his return to the broadcasting booth in place of David Otunga who is out for the next six weeks filming a movie.
To say he was good is being nice. He didn’t speak much and when he did it was very short except during tag team matches where he was the most comfortable.
While it was better than what we have heard from Otunga, that isn’t saying too much. Booker needs to vastly improve this week or WWE needs to consider going to a two-man booth which for one reason or another they have been reluctant to try.
