WWE RAW Season Premiere Is Underway!
The “season premiere” of WWE RAW opens with a shot inside the arena where the focus is on the steel cage hanging above the ring. Michael Cole promotes the fact that the Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt match kicks off this week’s show. From there, we watch a pre-taped video package that promotes Jerry Springer’s appearance tonight with The Bella Twins, as well as the aforementioned cage match and the Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton rematch from SummerSlam. Also, they highlight the Brock Lesnar and John Cena program, promising that Paul Heyman has a message for the leader of the Cenation.
Steel Cage Match
– Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt
After the video package, we return live inside the arena in Baltimore, Maryland, where Chris Jericho’s music hits. Jericho makes his way to the ring with his goofy-ass light-up jacket as Justin Roberts does the formal introductions inside the ring. After that, Bray Wyatt appears on the titan tron with the latern. “Baltimore, we’re here!” says the leader of The Wyatt Family. From there, the “fire flies” light up the building (fans with cell phones lighting up the arena) as Bray and his henchmen, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, make their way to the ring.
The cage is lowered and is covering the ring. The “Y2J” chants immediately break out. Jericho is already in the ring, Bray is outside the ring circling the cage. He finally enters and the bell rings to make our opening match of the evening official.
Jericho plants a dropkick right on the kisser of The Wyatt Family leader and then launches him throat first into the bottom rope. Bray gets Jericho on one side of the ring and then rushes to the other side, demandinng that the cage door be open. Jericho stops him. The fans in Baltimore are loud as hell now, doing some dueling chants. “Y2J” was one of them, the other couldn’t quite be made out.
Wyatt whips Jericho into the turnbuckles in the corner. Jericho immediately hops to the middle rope and tries to quickly scramble his way to the top and out of the cage. Wyatt stops him. Wyatt bounces Jericho face-first into the cage. And again. On that note, we head to a mid-match commercial with Wyatt firmly in control of the offense.
When we return from commercial, we see Wyatt and Jericho colliding in the middle of the ring. Both guys are down. Wyatt rolls over and covers Jericho but only gets a two count. We see some highlights of Wyatt dominating Jericho during the commercial break. Jericho gets Wyatt up on his shoulders and simply falls backwards like a big tree getting chopped down, as both guys crash down hard onto the mat. We see a shot of Luke Harper and Erick Rowan watching on from outside the cage at ringside as the announcers remind us that you can win by pinfall, submission or by exiting the cage.
Jericho and Wyatt are both back on their feet now and Jericho is nailing Wyatt with several knife-edge chops to the chest. Jericho is firing up now on offense and hits a big Lionsault on Wyatt. Jericho goes for the Walls of Jericho but Wyatt uses his leg strength to power-out of the submission hold.
Wyatt does the upside-down crab walk position, amateur bridge, whatever you want to call it, as the cage door is opened. It looked like he was going to crab-walk his way out of the cage door for the victory, but the Ayatollah Of Rock-And-Rollah stopped him. Seconds later, Wyatt regains the offensive control of the match. Wyatt is having his way now with the leader of Fozzy, taunting him and beating him down as the fans in B-More try and rally behind Jericho.
Moments later, Jericho gets some time as he has Wyatt laid out in the middle of the ring after a big spot on the top rope. Jericho begins to climb to the top of the cage. As you think he’s trying to exit the cage, he instead turns around, throws his hands up like “whatever, here we go!” and does a “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka-style body-splash dive onto a standing Bray Wyatt. The fans pop like crazy and then break out into “this is awesome” chants as several replays are shown. Jericho is selling his leg now, and the announcers are also putting over the fact that he may have hurt his leg on commentary.
The cage door is open and Jericho is crawling towards the cage door. Wyatt stops him. Or does he? Jericho breaks free momentarily but Wyatt again grabs hold of his leg to stop him. Both guys are head-first on the ring steps, half-in the cage and half-out of the cage. Jericho keeps trying to crawl away from Wyatt, using the steps as leverage, but Wyatt is holding onto him. Jericho rolls to his back now but Wyatt takes his knee pad off and pounds away at the leg that Jericho injured while jumping off of the top of the cage earlier. Wyatt simply leaps past Jericho and makes it to the floor, winning the cage match.
Winner: Bray Wyatt
After The Match
After the victory, Bray Wyatt still isn’t satisfied. He slams the cage door on the injured leg of Jericho and taunts the fans in Baltimore. “Is this your hero” yells Bray, as he continues to deliver punishment to an injured Jericho. Bray throws Jericho back into the cage and Harper and Rowan close and lock the cage door. Bray taunts the B-More fans again and then sets his sights on a laid out Y2J. Bray picks up Jericho and hits him with his “Sister Abigail” finisher. And that will do it for tonight’s opening match for the “season premiere” of WWE RAW.
Backstage: The Authority Talk About Their Plans For Tonight
Backstage, we see Kane and Seth Rollins talking. In walks Triple H. He talks about how tonight is the “season premiere” of Monday Night RAW. We see Randy Orton as well. HHH says tonight needs to be a night that nobody forgets. Orton asks HHH just how unforgettable he wants tonight to be. He says with HHH’s permission, he’d like to do something to Roman Reigns that makes what Rollins did to Dean Ambrose seem like child’s play. HHH gives him his permission. Orton smiles and walks off. We head to commercial break.