This week, WWE gets ready to head to Saudi Arabia for the increasingly controversial Crown Jewel event, and the fallout of Evolution turns eyes towards Survivor Series.

On RAW,Seth Rollins demands answers from Dean Ambrose, Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman prepare for their fight at Crown Jewel. The ladies of RAW all look to continue the momentum of Evolution, and the tag team division looks to establish a top team to vie for the Tag Team Championship.

On Smackdown, Styles and Bryan’s match at Crown Jewel is put in jeopardy, Charlotte is given an opportunity to bounce back from her loss at Evolution, Becky Lynch addresses her upcoming Survior Series match, and New Day looks to gain some momentum on the Bar.

On NXT, the fallout of the Aleister Black mystery continues to make waves in unexpected areas, William Regal decides the Heavyweight Championship match for War Games, and gives Undisputed Era some very bad news.

On 205, Mustafa Ali and Tony Nese vie to be the Number 1 contender for Buddy Murphy’s title, Cedric Alexander demands answers from Drake Maverick, and Brian Kendrick gets some surprising help in his battle against the Party of Gulak.

So, how did WWE do? Let’s find out!

RAW

WWE Universal Championship: Corbin kicked off RAW and said that while he was sorry that Roman Reigns was out with leukemia, he wouldn’t miss him and expressed the hope that Reigns would not return to RAW once he was free of cancer.

Turning his attention to Crown Jewel, Corbin began talking about the Universal Championship match between Braun Strowman but before he could do that, he was interrupted by Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar.

Heyman did his usual schtick of hyping up the match and vowing that Brock Lesnar would walk out as the Universal Champion. However, they were then interrupted by Braun Strowman.

Strowman came into the ring, and Heyman wisely bailed out, leaving Strowman, Lesnar, and Corbin in the ring. Strowman got on the mic and vowed to win the Universal Title and that Lesnar would get these hands.

Corbin, wanting to preserve his big main event, unwisely got between the two monsters and was shoved away by Strowman. Corbin then proved that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and attacked Strowman.

Strowman, wanting to send a message to the smug Brock Lesnar, hit his monster powerslam on Corbin twice.

After the second time, Lesnar jumped Strowman and hit the F-5 before leaving. We’ll see who the better man is on Friday.

Seth Rollins vs Dean Ambrose: Last Monday, just a few short hours after Roman Reigns’ heartbreaking news that he had leukemia, his brothers in arms, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose beat Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre for the RAW Tag Team Championship. Triumph turned to confusion and anger when Dean Ambrose turned on Seth Rollins, attacking his now former friend with a vicious assault, ending with a nasty Dirty Deeds on the floor.

This week, Seth Rollins addressed the events of last week. He thanked the WWE Universe for their love and support of Roman Reigns. Turning his attention to his own situation, he expressed his happiness at being a 3x tag team champion but admitted his sadness about what happened last week.

In a moment of self-reflection, Seth admitted that he’d wondered if his betrayal four years ago was the start of all this, and that Ambrose had been waiting all this time to get his revenge. He also said that he knew Ambrose well enough to know that calling and texting wouldn’t get him anywhere, so he’d waited until RAW, when he KNEW Dean would be around, and invited his former friend to come out and explain himself.

Dean did come out, but not to the ring. He came through the crowd to the spot where the Shield usually waited before making their way to the ring.

Unimpressed, Seth tried to encourage Ambrose to come down and explain himself, only to be met with silence. Growing increasingly frustrated with Ambrose’s refusal to face him or explain himself. Rollins accused Ambrose of wanting the spotlight all for himself, of spitting on the Shield, of being selfish and cold-blooded. Several times, Ambrose seemed on the verge of explaining himself, but refused to speak, or was interrupted by Rollins.

Having worked himself into a full rage, Rollins berated Ambrose for turning his back on him on the night Roman Reigns left to fight leukemia and called him a soulless lunatic.

Whatever Dean’s reasons for turning on Rollins, it’s clear that that choice of words was the wrong one. Ambrose’s demeanor changed from angry to PISSED, but he still refused to speak.

Just as Ambrose seemed to be about to meet Rollins face to face, Rollins said he was coming up there and getting his explanation. Still without saying a word, Ambrose left, leaving Rollins and the audience with no answers.

RAW Women’s Division: Ronda Rousey defeated Nikki Bella at Evolution, but as she was celebrating her victory, she had an odd encounter with SmackDown Women’s Champion, Becky Lynch that consisted of them calling each other ‘Champ’. However, that odd moment had a purpose. It was announced that Ronda Rousey will face Becky Lynch in a Champion vs Champion Match at Survivor Series.

Evolution had two big tag matches and, amidst rumors of a Women’s Tag Team Division, the members of both tag team matches took part in a huge ten-woman tag match: Trish, Lita, Nattie, Sasha, and Bayley versus Mickie James, Alicia Fox, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan.

The match was crazy, but super fun. Everyone on the baby face side got a moment. We got to see Sasha and Trish team up, Lita hit her signature Moonsault and did stereo Twists of Fate with Bayley. Lita and Trish also paid tribute to the Hardy Boys by hitting a modified Poetry in Motion on Sarah Logan.

Ultimately, the babyfaces won when Nattie locked in the Sharpshooter on Alicia Fox and the audience got a great moment for women on RAW.

Nia Jax was flying pretty high coming into RAW. She’d won the big women’s #1 Contender Battle Royal and was now in line for a title shot against Ronda Rousey. When asked about her championship opportunity, Nia said that she was going to wait until after Survivor Series before challenging Ronda Rousey.

They were interrupted by Ember Moon, who was the only one to eliminate more people than Nia before ultimately being eliminated by Nia. Ember seemed full of praise for her experience at Evolution, but Nia was less than impressed, reminding the Shenom that she (Nia) had eliminated her from the match. Ember refused to back up, saying that she respects Nia and is grateful for the guidance Nia gave her when she first came to the main roster. She also said that she hoped the respect was mutual or would be after their match.

How did the match go? Well, Ember tried REALLY hard, but she was really no match for Nia one on one and there was no accidental count-out to help her. Nia dominated the match for the most part, though Ember did get in a little offense.

It did seem that Nia’s erstwhile cousin, Tamina Snuka, was going to cost her the match by suddenly showing up, but Nia was able to put Ember away with a huge legdrop before we got a staredown between the two women.

RAW Tag Team Division: Authors of Pain, along with Drake Maverick, have been creating havoc for weeks in the tag team division. This week, they faced Bobby Roode, Chad Gable and the Ascension in a Triple Threat match. Roode/Gable and the Ascension wasted no time in taking out Authors of Pain before turning their attention to each other.

The match itself was quick with Gable/Roode getting the victory. AoP was not happy about being defeated, even if they weren’t pinned. They absolutely destroyed their opponents before leaving in disgust.

Lucha House Party, which has been living it up on 205 Live, made their RAW debut against the Revival. Revival dominated the match, but Kalisto was able to get in enough offense that he was actually able to get a pinfall victory without ever tagging in Lince Dorado or Gran Metalik.

Elias vs Jinder Mahal: Last week, Elias turned face by breaking his guitar over Baron Corbin’s back. This week, the Drifter addressed the situation in his pre-match concert. He regretted breaking a Fender guitar on Corbin but admitted that it felt really good. He then revealed that he’d written a song for the acting GM and headed to the back to sing it to him.

Not surprisingly, Corbin wasn’t in the mood for music, but that didn’t stop Elias from playing and insulting him. The impromptu concert was interrupted by an attack by Jinder Mahal, with the approval of Corbin.

Back from commercial, Elias and Mahal lock up. This was a pretty back and forth match. Mahal, with a little help from the Singhs, dominated much of the match, but Elias was finally able to turn things around, hitting the Drift Away for the pinfall. Oddly enough, the Singhs didn’t try to interfere with the count.

WWE World Cup: We got several big updates to the World Cup tournament at Crown Jewel. After destroying Finn Balor, Lashley talked to Corbin and complained about not having quality competition, despite Balor beating him twice. Corbin agreed that Lashley needed better competition and put him in the World Cup. When Lashley mentioned that all the World Cup spots were filled, Corbin informed him that he was replacing Cena, who didn’t qualify, in Corbin’s opinion. Never mind that Lashley didn’t either, but Cena is OUT of the World Cup.

We also, FINALLY, go the brackets for the tournament. On the RAW side, it’ll be: Seth Rollins vs Bobby Lashley and Kurt Angle vs Dolph Ziggler. On the SmackDown side, it’ll be: Rey Mysterio vs Randy Orton and Jeff Hardy vs Miz.

Kurt Angle and Dolph Ziggler both cut promos vowing victory, but Dolph seemed to forget that Angle had competed, and won, at the Olympics and accomplished more in six years in WWE than Dolph had in ten.

Ziggler had more immediate fish to fry in the form of Apollo Crews, who has been trying to get some momentum going. The match was okay, it seemed to be more about Ziggler gaining momentum for Crown Jewel than Apollo gaining momentum. Ziggler would put Crews away with a superkick and get the pin.

DX vs Brothers of Destruction: The Brothers of Destruction cut a promo last night saying that the Reaper calls everyone to him, but that DX had resisted the increasingly loud call long enough and that at Crown Jewel, the Brothers of Destruction will do the Reaper’s work and take the souls of DX to hell, but that’s on Friday. Taker calls out DX, offering to take their souls now instead of waiting.

DX seemed to respond, but only Triple H came out. In a ruse worthy of HBK and Taker’s 1997-98 feud, HBK waited until Kane had been lured out of the ring before hitting Sweet Chin Music on Taker. However, Shawn and Hunter would’ve done well to remember that Taker never stays down long. Sure enough, Taker sat up and the show ended with a staredown.

Finn Balor vs Bobby Lashley: After Corbin’s dismantling at the hands of Strowman, a very amused Balor had thrown the acting General Manager a Too Sweet before turning his attention to Bobby Lashley.

Lio Rush came out first, and dissed Balor, saying that Balor wasn’t really an extraordinary man, he was just lucky, and if anyone knows about lucky wins, it would be Lio Rush.

The match between Lashley and Balor was pretty good. Lashley largely dominated match, but Balor was able to get some offense in. Unlike last week, Rush interfered in the match, the second time, getting Lashley disqualified by pushing Balor off the top turnbuckle.

Enraged, Lashley attacked Balor, not Rush, ramming the smaller man into the ring edge several times and beating him severely, while Rush trashed Balor, before finally leaving.

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