Monday’s episode of Raw following WrestleMania 34 was full of news with several NXT calls up, returns, and announcements.
One of the major stories was Paige (Saraya-Jade Bevis) confirming that her in-ring career with the WWE is over and intimated that she is leaving the company to pursue new projects. She cut a heartfelt promo in the same arena where she made her main roster on the night after WrestleMania 30 in 2014. Paige was injured during a house show match in Long Island, New York last December and hasn’t wrestled again with PWinsider’s Mike Johnson reporting in January that the WWE would not clear her to wrestle.
Bobby Lashley returned to the WWE as he interrupted a segment involving Elias and laid him out. Lashley left the company in 2008 and most recently was working with Impact Wrestling.
Jeff Hardy returned from shoulder surgery and teamed with Seth Rollins and Finn Balor to defeat The Miz, Curtis Axel, and Bo Dallas in the main event of the show. Hardy also had a segment with Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt with Jeff being referred to as “Brother Nero”.
Samoa Joe also returned from injury and challenged Roman Reigns to a match at Backlash on May 6th following Reigns match with Brock Lesnar for the Greatest Royal Rumble card.
Ember Moon, The Authors of Pain, and No Way Jose were the annual NXT call-ups for the night after WrestleMania episode. Moon, having just dropped the women’s title to Shayna Baszler, teamed with Nia Jax to defeat Alexa Bliss and Mickie James. The Authors of Pain answered an open challenge and destroyed Heath Slater and Rhyno, after the match they appeared to separate with Paul Ellering, who doesn’t look like he will be part of their main roster run. No Way Jose entered with a large conga line and defeated John Skyler quickly.
It was also announced that the Superstar Shakeup will take place on next week’s editions of Raw and SmackDown Live from Hartford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island respectively. The shakeup did tremendous viewership in 2017 for both shows.
Next week’s Raw will also feature Bayley vs. Sasha Banks, and a tag match with Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt vs. The Revival with the winners facing The Bar at the Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia on April 27th for the vacant Raw tag titles. The tag titles were relinquished by Braun Strowman and Nicholas (who is the son of WWE referee John Cone) on Raw.
