A battle royal on Monday night will determine the next challengers for AJ Styles & Omos’ Raw Tag Team titles.
WWE has announced that RK-Bro (Randy Orton & Riddle), The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods), Mace & T-Bar, Lucha House Party (Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado), and The Viking Raiders (Erik & Ivar) will take part in a five-team battle royal on Monday’s episode of Raw. The winning team will become the number one contenders to Styles & Omos’ Raw Tag Team titles, but WWE hasn’t revealed when they’ll be getting their title shot.
Styles & Omos won the Raw Tag Team titles from Kingston & Woods at WrestleMania 37 this April. On Raw earlier this week, Styles & Omos retained against Elias & Jaxson Ryker after Elias abandoned Ryker during the match.
Two segments have also been announced for Monday’s Raw. WWE Champion Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre will take part in a contract signing ahead of their title match at this month’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view. Plus, Shayna Baszler will come to Alexa’s Playground.
A new title match has been made official for this month’s Clash of Champions pay-per-view.
On SmackDown tonight, WWE announced that SmackDown Tag Team Champions Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro will defend their titles against two members of The Lucha House Party at Clash of Champions:
Lucha House Party has been trying to crash ‘The Champions Lounge’ for some time, but Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro have continued to crush their title dreams. Now Lucha House Party will hope to finally grasp the SmackDown Tag Team Titles that have evaded them.
The return of Kalisto has caused friction within Lucha House Party as all three members have tried to carve out their new roles. Gran Metalik & Kalisto delivered the biggest win in the ongoing back-and-forth by defeating the champions with an assist from The Street Profits. After Kalisto & Lince Dorado were ejected from ringside, Cesaro capitalized with an emphatic victory over Gran Metalik in the most recent chapter of the rivalry.
Can Lucha House Party stay on the same page and dial up the volume with a title breakthrough? Or will The King of Strong Style & The Swiss Cyborg fight off yet another challenge?
Don’t miss WWE Clash of Champions at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on the award-winning WWE Network.
Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy defending his title against AJ Styles and Sami Zayn in a triple threat ladder match was also set up for Clash of Champions on SmackDown tonight, but that match has yet to be officially announced by WWE.
Clash of Champions is taking place on Sunday, September 27. Here’s the updated card for the show:
WWE Champion Drew McIntyre defends against Randy Orton in an ambulance match
Universal Champion Roman Reigns defends against Jey Uso
SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley defends against Nikki Cross
Women’s Tag Team Champions Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax defend against Ruby Riott & Liv Morgan
SmackDown Tag Team Champions Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro defend against The Lucha House Party
Two matches have been added to Friday’s SummerSlam go-home episode of SmackDown.
SmackDown Tag Team Champions Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro will defend their titles against The Lucha House Party (Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado) on SmackDown this week. This is the second title match set for the show. AJ Styles will also defend his Intercontinental title against Jeff Hardy on the episode.
Big E vs. Sheamus is the other new match that’s been announced for this week’s SmackDown.
Metalik defeated Nakamura on SmackDown last week after Nakamura was distracted by Kalisto making his return. Kalisto and Dorado took out Cesaro at ringside.
Big E defeated John Morrison last Friday. Earlier in the show, their first attempt at facing each other was interrupted by RETRIBUTION. Big E rallied the SmackDown roster backstage after that until being interrupted by Sheamus. Sheamus said Big E was alone, vulnerable, and scared.
This week’s SmackDown will see the debut of WWE’s ThunderDome virtual fan experience at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. The show will also feature the final build to Braun Strowman’s Universal Championship defense against “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt at SummerSlam.
After being away most of the year due to injury, Kalisto returned to WWE on tonight’s episode of SmackDown.
He made an appearance during a Gran Metalik vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match which took place tonight. Kalisto helped Lince Dorado take care of Cesaro with a tornado DDT. This allowed Metalik to hit Nakamura with a springboard elbow for the win.
The announcers mentioned that Kalisto had been out of action for some time following a separated shoulder. Kalisto last wrestled back in December, when he and Gran Metalik lost a tag match to The Revival at a WWE house show in Los Angeles, California.
Since Kalisto’s injury, the Lucha House Party has remained a team and have competed for the SmackDown Tag Team titles on several occasions throughout the year.
The trio, originally part of Raw, were moved to SmackDown as part of the WWE Draft that took place in October of last year.
The Big Takeaway: After doing something different last week, this was a dull show with two meager matches. Mojo Rawley defeated No Way Jose and Gran Metalik & Kalisto saw off EC3 & Eric Young in under two minutes.
Dio Maddin was on the announce team this week alongside Bryon Saxton and Renee Young.
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Mojo Rawley defeated No Way Jose (4:44)
Rawley’s look is absurd at the moment. He has a few lines of blue face paint across his face that look like they were applied at a kids’ party. He also looks like he’s carried an injury at some point in the last few months and is still getting back into ring shape.
For a guy with Rawley’s physical presence and intensity, it feels that it’s already time to hit the reset button on a character that they gave some vignettes and hype to but then quickly gave up on.
They’ve done this match several times before on Main Event and it doesn’t get any more exciting the sixth time around. It’s your basic back and forth and offers nothing creative or new.
After Jose tried to roll Rawley up with a schoolboy, Rawley kicked out and caught the charge of Jose. He planted Jose with an Alabama slam and got the victory.
The Lucha House Party (Gran Metalik & Kalisto w/ Lince Dorado) defeated EC3 & Eric Young (1:54)
Speaking of guys that they’re not doing enough with right now, EC3 and Eric Young have to be right up at the top of that list. And with new opportunities to appear on live television each week and on new networks that can reach new audiences, if I were them, I’d be making a fuss.
As the runtime suggests, they went at this at 100 mph, with Metalik and Kalisto getting all their stuff in as best they could. They teamed up on EC3 and Young with flips and dives and then did stereo suicide dives to the outside.
After a commercial break, Metalik flipped over the top rope to take out EC3, and Kalisto countered Young’s attempt to finish him off, nailing him with the Salida del Sol for the win.
Another NXT wrestler is set to appear on tonight’s episode of 205 Live.
WWE has announced that Raul Mendoza will be teaming with Humberto Carrillo against The Lucha House Party (Kalisto & Gran Metalik) tonight. It’s being billed as an NXT vs. 205 Live match, though Carrillo is also regularly on 205 Live.
Mendoza & Carrillo have previously teamed together in NXT.
This will be the first time Mendoza has wrestled on 205 Live. After taking part in the Cruiserweight Classic in 2016 and losing to Brian Kendrick in the first round, Mendoza signed with WWE in 2017.
Cruiserweight Champion Drew Gulak is facing NXT’s Isaiah “Swerve” Scott (Shane Strickland) in a non-title match on tonight’s 205 Live. There will also be a contract signing for Drake Maverick vs. Mike Kanellis.
WWE has yet to announce when Maverick vs. Kanellis will take place. If Kanellis wins, he’ll get a shot at the Cruiserweight title.
The American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida is hosting tonight’s SmackDown and 205 Live.
The Big Takeaway: Dana Brooke defeated Sarah Logan in a rematch from last week where Brooke had suffered a nasty facial injury. The main event saw the random team of EC3, Cesaro & Robert Roode see off the Lucha House Party in under three minutes.
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Dana Brooke defeated Sarah Logan (6:13)
Whether this show will reap any of the benefits of Paul Heyman becoming executive director on the Raw side of things remains to be seen.
The fact WWE acknowledged last week at all here is certainly a positive. Quite rightly, they did a rematch and made a much better go of it. Brooke was smiling and fired up throughout and they kept doing spots where she would get her face bashed.
The finish saw Logan with Brooke on the apron again. She went for the running knee that caused the stoppage from last week, but Brooke had it scouted. Brooke countered and then landed a Swanton Bomb from the top rope for the win.
Cesaro, EC3 & Robert Roode defeated The Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik) (2:40)
This, however, was a negative. If this show does see any changes, it would certainly benefit if they didn’t throw together arbitrary tag matches where the entrance times out-strip the running time of the match.
The first minute was EC3 getting dominated by the pace and tenacity of the Lucha House Party — before the ring filled and the LHP cleared it, posing in unison. And then we went to a break. Yes, a commercial break, in a three-minute match.
I can also confirm that wrestling took place during the commercials.
The last minute was everyone hitting their finishers but failing to get the pinfall. The finish was Cesaro hitting a European uppercut on Metalik as he came off the top rope. As usual, the timing looked fantastic.
Sullivan defeated Kalisto, Metalik & Dorado by disqualification at Super ShowDown, with The Lucha House Party getting disqualified when they were all in the ring and wouldn’t stop attacking Sullivan. As The Lucha House Party went to leave after the match, Sullivan attacked Kalisto, Metalik & Dorado.
The SAP Center in San Jose, California is hosting tonight’s Raw. Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins will defend their Raw Tag Team titles against The Revival and The Usos in a triple threat match, United States Champion Samoa Joe will appear on Miz TV, and Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre will celebrate Shane’s win against Roman Reigns from Super ShowDown.
Most of tonight’s Raw is going against game five of the Toronto Raptors vs. Golden State Warriors NBA Finals series, with the basketball game starting at 9 p.m. Eastern time. The Raptors are leading three games to one in the best-of-seven series.
Lars Sullivan’s main roster in-ring debut is set for Saudi Arabia.
On tonight’s SmackDown, WWE announced that Sullivan will face The Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado) in a three-on-one handicap match at Super ShowDown in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Friday, June 7. The event is taking place at King Abdullah Sports City Stadium and will air live on the WWE Network starting at 2 p.m. Eastern time.
Sullivan has been feuding with the Lucha House Party and has had segments where he’s brawled with and attacked them, but this will be his first official match on the main roster.
WWE put out a statement earlier this month announcing that Sullivan would be fined $100,000 for racist, homophobic, and other offensive posts he had made on Bodybuilding.com’s forum in his past. It was also noted that Sullivan would be required to complete sensitivity training. In his own statement, Sullivan apologized for the posts and said they don’t reflect who he is today.
Here’s the updated card for Super ShowDown:
Goldberg vs. The Undertaker
Triple H vs. Randy Orton
Universal Champion Seth Rollins defending against Baron Corbin
WWE Champion Kofi Kingston defending against Dolph Ziggler
Roman Reigns vs. Shane McMahon
Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley
Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor (as his Demon character) defending against Andrade
Lars Sullivan vs. The Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado) in a three-on-one handicap match
The Big Takeaway: The babyfaces won both matches this week. The Lucha House Party combined to defeat Jinder Mahal & The Singh Brothers, and The B-Team then took out The Ascension in under two minutes.
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Byron Saxton and Renee Young led the announce team again this week alongside Percy Watson. This seems to be the permanent setup now.
Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik) defeated Jinder Mahal & The Singh Brothers (5:35)
It’s not been much of a start to 2019 for Mahal. The loss here left him without a win since the end of December, and his Royal Rumble performance saw him with one of the five shortest survival times.
This was a rematch of their Raw bout from the Royal Rumble go-home show. In that one, Metalik won with a backbreaker — and the finish might’ve been a botch when Sunil didn’t break up the pin in time and the announcers seemed caught off guard.
Here, Lucha House Party took out Mahal and used a combination of their finishing moves to see off the Singh Brothers.
Samir broke up a cover by Kalisto on Sunil. Dorado hit him with the Golden Rewind, then Kalisto sprung up and nailed Sunil with the Salida Del Sol. Dorado came off the top rope with a Shooting Star Press on Sunil for the win.
This was okay, but the Singh Brothers were a little sloppy and struggled to take some of the moves towards the end.
The B-Team defeated The Ascension (1:50)
Curtis Axel took to Twitter this week commenting on a fairly glaring issue with WWE’s booking. With Nia Jax taking out R-Truth so that he didn’t enter the Royal Rumble, Truth was gifted a United States Championship title match. Axel never got the same treatment and has a point, but his stock is pretty low these days.
There was nothing to this match and they went quickly with it, despite it even going through a WrestleMania commercial. These two teams have been facing off against each other over the last few months on Main Event and Raw. The B-Team have generally been taking the spoils, but this was their first win of the year.
They went to the finish after Konnor broke up a pin attempt by Axel on Viktor. Konnor ran towards Bo Dallas, but Dallas pulled the top rope down and sent him to the matting outside.
Dallas tagged in and they teamed up to hit their as yet unnamed belly-to-back suplex/neckbreaker combo on Viktor for the win.
The Lucha House Party which consists of Kalisto, Lince Dorado and Gran Metalik made their debut as a group tonight on Raw. The team of Dorado and Kalisto defeated the Revival, with Kalisto scoring the win with the Salida del Sol on Scott Dawson. Announcers never explained why Lucha House Party were on Raw or what their status is on 205 Live.
This isn’t the first time that 205 Live talent have found a spot on the Raw roster. General Manager Drake Maverick has been managing the Authors of Pain since September, while Lio Rush has been managing Bobby Lashley. Both still appear on 205 Live regularly.
All three members of the Lucha House Party were part of the inaugural 205 Live roster when the show started back in the fall of 2016. Kalisto has also been part of the main roster in the past, winning the United States championship on two occasions.
