Monday Night RAW in Kansas City: The Memorial Day 2019 Edition aka The Beast Box Episode

The program kicks off with something WWE will always do so very well. Those video montages. Man, when they do Memorial Day, they do it right. Gave me chills.

The show kicks off with Kofi Kingston and Seth Rollins waiting for an answer from Mr. Money in the Bank, Brock Lesnar. We get Lesnar… But a weird briefcase/boombox prop and dances to the ring to some really bad music. Ha ha? Making fun of the 90s? I think? Too many question marks. Brock does his dancing shtick too long, suddenly Heyman breaks out into air-guitar which Lesnar is not amused by. Neither is Rollins and he decides to leave. This causes some confusion, except Heyman puts on a cartoonesque boo-boo face and says because Rollins left, they won’t reveal.

Well, that was a complete waste.

Thankfully, the show is saved when Dolph Ziggler arrives to beat up Kingston, and then brawl all over the arena with Xavier Woods. Now this was a fight. This was the real start to the show. Ziggler’s promo was fantastic. His bloodied face, passioned pleas, and his clear and admitted moments of desperation flowed like a paradise river. It was clear, it was fluid, and it was at the right pace. Ziggler may be fodder for the WWE Champion, but not an afterthought. He’s putting his all into it. Kofi has stepped it up, and it seems Xavier Woods has benefit from this as well.

We get an Uso Block Party, everyone having fun except EC3 sitting a nursing a drink. Shout out to Natalya’s birthday. They say “no Revival allowed.” Boo. Drake Maverick still handing out flyers searching for R-Truth.

Shane McMahon w/ Drew McIntyre defeated Lance Anoa’i

This whole bit is getting old. We get it, Shane won one match to become “Best in the World” and then literally slips his way to multiple victories over The Miz. We all get it. This bit has jumped the rails, jumped the shark, jumped the whatever you can think of. McIntyre beats up Lance, and then feeds him to Shane. Shane is gassed five seconds in. I am so afraid he’s going to drop of a stroke or heart attack. The guy sweats just going up the ring stairs. This isn’t good health man. Anyway, Roman Reigns makes the save. Yay.

McIntyre is going to play second string for everyone, isn’t he.

Really long promo to hype up Super Showdown featuring Triple H vs. Randy Orton showing all of the past history. Yawn.

Brock and Heyman return to announce the cash in. Seth Rollins interrupts. Heyman goes all legal and reads the contract allowed in front of the ref, and suddenly he gets to the line about having a whole year. This stops Brock in his tracks. Mic just within audio range, hears Brock say: “Wait, I have a year?” Heyman’s response: “You didn’t know? You don’t know how this works?”

Finally, Brock: “No! I don’t know how this works!”

So we’ve gone from boombox-toting buffon to a straight-up ignorant idiot.

This doesn’t really add to the air of mystery. Most of us don’t want to see Brock anyway, so if he vanishes and doesn’t reappear until next year, then fine by me. Sorry, I’m just not interested in Brock cashing in.

Backstage: Aj Styles is injured and will be out of a fatal-four way contender’s match. He gets attacked by Bacon Rorbin anyway.

Becky Lynch & Nikki Cross defeated The IIConics in a non-title match

Good match, I’m still not a fan of the Iiconics. Way too much screaming. Way too much. They are somewhat talented, but I’m just not feeling it.

Lacey Evans is back doing the tease shtick. Again, might be talented, but not into it at all. A dozen other women and she gets the fast track to main eventing?

Did I mention how much I love Cesaro’s new entrance. Well, I LOVE Cesaro’s new entrance. Looks just so epic. He has another great match against Ricochet, this time the One and Only gets the win. Looks like Cesaro got hurt at some point, he appeared to have difficulty recovering after the pinfall and for a brief second, before the camera cuts away, you can see the ref throw his hands up. Hope it’s not serious.

Announced, next week Rey Mysterio will relinquish the United States Championship due to injury.

Uso Block Party: The Usos and Revival are going head-to-head in a heated game of bean-bag toss.

The Miz announces he hopes to earn his way to a Universal Championship match, and he’s going to have another baby. Braun Strowman cuts a promo congratulating the Miz and threatening both Bobby Lashley and Baron Corbin. Match was alright. Strowman and Lashley brawl through the crowd, leaving Miz to have more than a few near falls only for Corbin to counter and hit the End of Days for the win. He will face Seth Rollins at Super Showdown for the Universal Championship.

The Usos party breaks down after the Revival resort to cheating in the bean-bag game. R-Truth shows up and after a few roll up attempts, everyone chases him.

The “Electric Chair” segment was so awful. Just so awful.

Until Sami Zayn, who had said he fans could ask anything, was stumped as to why no one asked him about AEW. Yep. That’s right. That made the segment.

Main Event: Seth Rollins defeated Sami Zayn

The lead-in was to a guy who flubbed his lines in asking about the Universal title. This led to Zayn saying he could win any time he wanted, which brought out Rollins. Really good match, I wondered if Rollins legit hurt his knee again, and just couldn’t tell if part of the match of if for real. Good job.

No Brock cash-in, and I don’t care. I don’t think anyone cared.

Onto SmackDown!