One day after his tag partner suffered 2016’s most devastating WWE injury, Big Cass stepped up to the plate in a big way and delivered The Coolest Thing On Raw Last Night.
Welcome to a new post-wrestling show article series that plucks out the best part of the biggest rasslin programs. With so many hours of content on TV each week (5 prime time WWE hours and one each for NXT and Lucha Underground), it can sometimes be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s where The Coolest Thing on Raw Last Night (or CTORLN) comes in. We pluck out the best part and tell you exactly why it’s so awesome.
HONORABLE MENTION:
US CHAMPIONSHIP #1 CONTENDER BATTLE ROYAL
You can never go wrong with a battle royal, and Raw’s was no exception. After two straight months of Ryback-flavored tedium, the United States Championship added some spice with a pretty good Battle Royal to determine the number one contender. There was the chance to see some of the WWE’s lesser-used talent (hi Sandow), there was the nice, if slightly understated return of Titus O’Neal, some interesting stories were told, and the ending worked pretty well to make Extreme Rules’ US Title bout a bit more intriguing. Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin furthered their feud in a way that wrote both out of the Battle Royal, and the hostility between the former League of Nations made for an interesting ending where Zack Ryder eliminated all but one of the faction members in the process of a valiant runner-up attempt. Rusev is a much more believable title contender than Ryback has been, and it opens up the possiblity of another Cena-Rusev feud if the Bulgarian takes the belt. Let’s just keep the feud restricted to one or two Pay-Per-Views, please?
THE COOLEST THING ON RAW LAST NIGHT:
BIG CASS’ BIG NIGHT
WWE Payback was a weird show; there was rarely a satisfying result to be seen, but the show had a constant pall over it due to an injury Enzo Amore suffered while getting thrown into the ropes during the main show’s opening match. Due to the nature of the injury, which knocked Enzo out immediately, the audience at home couldn’t tell whether the awkward hit had done any further damage, including paralysis. The infrequent updates that only offered up slight details like limb movement had us worried that Enzo’s injury could be the career-ending kind. While there’s still a possiblity that Enzo might have a Bret Hart-level concussion that could lead to premature retirement, things have turned brighter in the day since Payback.
That momentum continued into Raw, where Big Cass took great advantage of working (sorta) solo. The Cass/Enzo team has been on fire since they were called up, but a lot of that could be attributed to Enzo’s masterful microphone work. The eight-man tag not only established the depth of the WWE Tag Team division by giving four groups the chance to state their cases, it gave Cass plenty of opportunities to show off his skills. From his brief promo that showed his growth behind the microphone to the amazing match-closing sequence where he dominated the opposition after a hot tag, this match proved there’s little to worry about for Cass should he have to go it alone for awhile.
THE SICKEST MOVE FROM THE COOLEST THING ON RAW LAST NIGHT:
I think the Vaudevillains deserve some credit as well for capitalizing on the Enzo injury to get some legitimate heat. I know everyone is (and might still be) predicting them to end up like the Ascension, but Gotch and English already look more established than they ever did.
I got a bit of a chuckle when they referred to Big E’s belly-to-belly as a belly-to-booty. I just got back into wrestling, so I’m not sure if that was random or a normal thing for Big E.