Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer reported via a recent episode of “Wrestling Observer Radio” with Garrett Gonzales that WWE RAW was booked very last minute this week, majorly in part to Seth Rollins not being cleared this week.
According to Meltzer, RAW was supposed to be very Seth Rollins-heavy, but he wasn’t cleared by doctors and that led to some changes on the show. Ronda Rousey was initially booked to face Alexa Bliss in what would have been another squash match, but that was repackaged to have her and Ruby Riott go in a longer form match to close out the show.
Regarding the NXT call-ups, from what Meltzer has heard, Vince McMahon was reacting to the ratings and basically wanted to get great wrestlers on RAW now and wanted the four best guys from NXT. Due to a miscommunication, Triple H was unaware of the move. This was a decision made last week. The plan for now is to have Ciampa, Gargano, Black and Ricochet to work all three brands.
Ricochet’s debut was going to put him up against Finn Balor, but Triple H was able to get that match removed considering the fact that they are two babyfaces, Finn just won the Intercontinental Title and having Ricochet lose in his debut match would not be the greatest first impression for a larger audience.
Vince arrived late in the afternoon at about 1 pm or 2 pm and that’s when the readjustments began. The actual script wasn’t done until 30 minutes into the show and changes were still being made an hour and a half after RAW started.
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