The latest episode of WWE Raw will take place in Toronto, Ontario on Monday.
One of the biggest storylines heading into the show surrounds Money In The Bank briefcase holder Braun Strowman, who has challenged Universal champion Roman Reigns to a one-on-one confrontation following last week’s surprising attack by The Shield.
As of the time of writing, no matches have been announced for this week’s episode, but we can expect the likes of Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre to be in action at some point during the show.
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Elsewhere this week, Constable Baron Corbin will be in sole charge of Raw for the first time after General Manager Kurt Angle was sent on ‘vacation’ by Stephanie McMahon last week, while new Raw Women’s champion Ronda Rousey is advertised to make an appearance.
Further down the card, the storyline between Titus Worldwide and The Authors of Pain looks set to continue, and The Revival are likely to receive a rematch against The B-Team soon for the Raw Tag Team Championships.
In this article, let’s take a look at five last-minute predictions ahead of the episode.
#5 Will Braun Strowman challenge for the Universal Championship?
It looked towards the end of last week’s Raw as if Braun Strowman was going to cash in his Money In The Bank contract on Roman Reigns. However, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose interrupted the cash-in and the Universal Championship match never got started.
With Braun seemingly intent on cashing in at the nearest possible opportunity, he issued a challenge to Reigns on social media over the weekend, asking the new champ to face him on this week’s Raw without the help of his fellow Shield members.
As interesting as it would be to see Braun cash in his contract in a pre-arranged match, it would be a major surprise if WWE went down that route on an episode of Raw rather than on pay-per-view, so let’s predict that his latest cash-in attempt will be foiled again by The Shield.
Prediction: Braun Strowman cashes in at a later date
#4 What next for Titus Worldwide?
Following their latest loss against The Authors of Pain on Raw last week, Titus O’Neil essentially blamed Apollo Crews (and even Dana Brooke) for the defeat during an online interview after the show.
Titus Worldwide’s best run as a tag team came in early 2018 when they picked up a series of non-title victories over The Bar, but they were unable to win the Raw Tag Team titles at Elimination Chamber in February and they have since slipped further down the pecking order in the tag division.
After last week’s break-up tease, let’s predict that the duo will lose another match on Monday (against AOP again, perhaps?) and a frustrated Titus will walk alone to the back while Dana checks on Apollo.
Prediction: Titus O’Neil abandons Apollo Crews
#3 Who will challenge Ronda Rousey next?
New Raw Women’s champion Ronda Rousey celebrated her SummerSlam victory over Alexa Bliss by locking in yet another armbar on Stephanie McMahon on last week’s episode of Raw.
Ronda also stressed that, unlike Brock Lesnar, she will be a fighting champion following her title win, which presumably means that she will be involved in a match at the upcoming Hell In A Cell pay-per-view.
If that is the case, then a rematch from SummerSlam is the most likely next step in this storyline, especially with one of Alexa's latest allies, Constable Baron Corbin, running Raw for the foreseeable future.
Prediction: Baron Corbin grants Alexa Bliss a rematch
#2 Will Raw run smoothly with Baron Corbin in charge?
It was announced on last week's Raw by Stephanie McMahon that Baron Corbin, the current Raw Constable, will take over from Kurt Angle as the brand's General Manager until further notice.
With Corbin now in charge of making the matches, there will almost certainly be an unfair bias against some of the babyface members of the roster, especially Finn Balor and Bobby Lashley – two men who have defeated him in the last eight days.
Corbin is likely to be involved in multiple segments throughout the show, so let's predict that he'll abuse his power by putting Balor and Lashley in a handicap match.
Prediction: Baron Corbin tries to punish Finn Balor and Bobby Lashley
#1 Will there be an NXT call-up?
The WWE rumour mill has been running wild over the last 24 hours with speculation that Velveteen Dream could be making his long-awaited debut on the main roster in the not-too-distant future.
All of this stemmed from social media posts by the man himself, who said “It’s Happening!!!!!!!” on Sunday, just three hours after cryptically tweeting, “Don’t Rush The Process… TRUST THE PROCESS… Cuz U Really Don’t Know What’s Going On.”
So, does “It’s Happening!!!!!!” have something to do with a main-roster call-up? Or is everybody getting their hopes up for no reason? Let’s err on the side of caution.
Prediction: No NXT call-ups