The Raw after Summerslam was last night from Brooklyn, and it had a ‘Raw after WrestleMania’ feel to it. There were a few MAJOR surprises, and we even got our main event for next month’s Night of Champions pay per view. Let’s get to the five stars from last night’s Raw!

1. Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar

It’s kind of a given that these two were one of the best parts of Raw, but as much as I hate to see Lesnar lose, the night after promos by Heyman are a thing of beauty. To say Lesnar lost in controversial fashion at Summerslam would be an understatement, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a match end like that in all my years of watching wrestling. Yes it protects both guys and yes it sets up some interesting scenarios in the future, but I do have a problem with that being your main event, especially when Seth Rollins beat John Cena to become the first ever WWE and US Champion earlier in the night. I would have rather Summerslam gone off the air with Rollins celebrating with both belts instead of Lesnar death staring a referee. With that said, Heyman’s promo here was great, and if they’re setting up a winner take all third match where Lesnar officially retires Taker in Dallas then I’m all in. Supplementary best to Bo Dallas, who I’m pretty sure is buried under the ring in Brooklyn right now. Those German suplexes looked brutal as hell.

2. New Day

Is New Day a real thing anymore or are the best parts of my brain coming together to make me hallucinate this wonderfulness?First we got this amazing dance after they won the tag titles at Summerslam:

I could do the Big E dance, that’s how awake I am pic.twitter.com/xuAwTdltN6

— Sahpy (@sahpy4) August 24, 2015

Then they came to the ring last night to sing a cover version of ‘New York, New York’ with Xavier Woods on the trombone. I really don’t think they can get any more entertaining than they are now, but I know they’ll one up themselves. With Rusev wasting away in a stupid jealously angle with Ziggler, New Day are now far and away my favorite part of every wrestling show. The best part is they can also back up their shenanigans with solid tag team wrestling. Xavier Woods as the obnoxious, trombone playing mouth piece followed up by the speed and power of Kofi and Big E should be what the tag team division is built around. I can’t think of one team I wouldn’t want to see feud/fight with New Day, which brings me to my next point…

3. The Mother Fucking Dudley Boyz Are Back

After New Day disposed of the Lucha Dragons, they began celebrating in the ring again, which brought out BUBBA RAY & DEVON DUDLEY. If you told me I could somehow be happier while watching New Day celebrate a victory, I’d call you a liar, but then the Dudley Boyz came out and my heart and brain simultaneously exploded. The thing about tag team wrestling is that a team like the Dudley’s, who were never built around great technical wrestling, can realistically wrestle forever. They’re money on the microphone and they can put over any team in the tag team division because they’re legitimately the most decorated team of all time. Just listen to the pop from the crowd last night. It was deafening, and you know Bubba Ray has been dying to come in and reignite the tag team division, and you can have confidence that the Dudley Boyz will do it with no ego attached. They’re not the New Age Outlaws coming back to prove how much better their era was; they’re just a great tag team who wants to work with the young guys and put on some great matches. Awesome move by WWE bringing Bubba Ray and Devon back.

4. The Wyatt Family

Bray and Luke Harper lost clean as a whistle to Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose at Summerslam, so when they announced a rematch on Raw I was hoping for something different to happen. Braun Stowman was that something different. Stowman is a legitimate former tough man competitor, and even without seeing him wrestle, his size brings instant credibility and fear to the Wyatt Family. This is the Bray Wyatt I wanted all along. He didn’t have to be like the NWO and recruit every guy under the sun, but if you’re billing him as this cult leader who can persuade people with his words, shouldn’t he have some followers? Harper and Rowan were a good start, but then they disbanded them, and now it looks like the WWE is ready to take Wyatt seriously again. I don’t know if this means Reigns and Ambrose get a third guy as well or if Reigns just overcomes the odds Cena style, but I like where this is headed. Let Stowman wreak havoc on the WWE until Bray Wyatt get’s that long deserved WWE title shot.

5. Sting

The main event of Raw was Seth Rollins well deserved statue ceremony, and wrestling 101 tells you that anytime there is a structure in the ring that everyone tells you is going to be one thing, it will most certainly be something different. We already knew Rollins was going to be in the main event scene for the next decade, but his match against Cena just cemented that mindset. He was amazing, and hey, a heel cheated to win a match. What a peculiar concept. Out of that win came the statue ceremony last night, and instead of Rollins’ new bronze statue, he was greeted by Sting. Obviously there was a lot of online complaining about this, particularly about the fact that they used that big spot on Sting and not a young guy, but fans who complain about that don’t understand what’s happening. Say the WWE put Cesaro behind that curtain. From a story telling standpoint, would the reaction and subsequent match at Night of Champions have been better or worse? The answer is worse, and I’m saying that as a Cesaro fan. The WWE’s goal is to make Seth Rollins THE MAN, and you do that by beating established guys, not by beating guys who need a big push of their own. I have complete faith that Rollins and Sting will have a great match at Night of Champions, and the mind games leading up to it will be even better. Sometimes you just need to sit back and enjoy the show, and let a grown man in face paint beat the crap out of somebody.

-Ryan