The Raw before the go home Raw before Battleground took place last night from Chicago. The show started off a little slow, but picked it up and ended up having one of the most entertaining final hours of a WWE show in recent memory. Brock Lesnar found some fire axes, Paige still has no friends and Cesaro might be finally getting a consistent chance to shine. Let’s get to the 5 stars from last night’s Raw!

1. Rusev

So the WWE decided to feud Dolph Ziggler and Rusev for Rusev’s post Cena angle, and on paper it’s perfect. Rusev needs a good feud where he comes out on top and he’s at his best when he can stomp and throw guys around. Dolph Ziggler is the king of losing feuds while still looking good and can get thrown around better than just about anybody. As luck would have it, Rusev broke his ankle and had to start off the first month or so of the feud on crutches, forcing us to sit through multiple weeks of Ziggler and Lana weirdly making out in the ring. Well Rusev ain’t hurt no more, and good God did he put a beating on Ziggler. The best part was that there haven’t been any health updates on Rusev, so the attack and Rusev’s ability to move around and fight came as a complete surprise to me. I like the added dimension of Summer Rae too, because now you have a legitimate women’s wrestler going after Lana. I can’t say I’m rooting for Ziggler here, but if Rusev and Summer Rae continue to be huge assholes, Lana’s revenge will only be that much sweeter. For now, I’m happy my sweet Bulgarian prince is back to kicking ass.

2. Brock Lesnar

The only thing scarier than Brock Lesnar is Brock Lesnar with a god damn fire axe in each hand, and that’s exactly what we got last night. Everyone complaining that J & J Security’s Cadillac didn’t get destroyed last week now know why it’s best to have a ‘wait and see’ approach when it comes to professional wrestling. This segment kicked off the final hour of Raw, which was one of the best hours of Raw in recent memory. The story here is that Brock is a beast, but that Rollins can outsmart him by provoking him into handicap situations like a few weeks ago. If you’re facing Brock Lesnar 1 on 1 you aren’t winning. Plain and simple. But if you can lure him into situations that are more advantageous to you than they are to him, then you might have a shot. The only problem with that logic is that Brock is managed by an evil mastermind, and Heyman only had to see his client get beat down once before he altered his game plan. That alteration came in the form of a human being literally ripping the door off a car and throwing it into the crowd. Brock threw the car door so far he actually hit a fan in the front row (who is thankfully ok) and then in probably the scariest part of the whole segment, jumped from the floor to the apron and then hopped over the TOP rope and chased Rollins into the crowd. The only advantage you can possibly have over a guy like Brock is your speed, except Brock is a fucking cyborg so he’s probably going to be faster than you too. I love the way this feud has been booked so far, and I hope Lesnar suplexes Rollins into the stratosphere at Battleground.

3. Titus O’Neil

The Lucha Dragons took on the New Day in a really fun tag match, but like so many other matches on Raw, the announce team tried their hardest to ruin it. JBL talked incessantly about Brock Lesnar destroying the Cadillac, which is fine, but maybe save it for some dead air time and not for a match where all four guys are busting their ass to gain some prominence in the tag team division. Thankfully Titus O’Neil was on commentary, and he shut down JBL so bad that JBL actually stopped talking. The best line was when JBL tried to question Titus’s intelligence, only to be informed by Titus himself that he actually has two college degrees. The announce team is generally horrible, and I’m glad that a team that was sent out there to get not only themselves but also the tag team division over did their job. Too many wrestlers or divas just let the announce team dictate the conversation and you end having something similar to what happens when the Bella Twins are on commentary. They disregard the match AND the feuds that the wrestlers spent so much time building to talk nonsense. Nonsense is ok once in awhile, but when it’s your only card to play, it’s detrimental to the product. Kudos to Titus for shutting up JBL and having some pride in the tag team division.

4. John Cena

There’s really not much that can be said about this match other than it doesn’t get much better than what Cesaro and Cena did in last night’s main event. The match went about 25 minutes, and it was magical. When you have a crowd like Chicago, known for being one of the most vocal crowds in wrestling, literally exhausted from the action, you know you’ve done a great job. Seriously, look at the crowd towards the end of that match. They’re mentally and physically drained. Cena is too, which says nothing about his physical condition and everything about how hard he was busting his ass. In just about every Cena match, it’s almost impossible to believe the other guy is going to win. Cena has been winning for over a decade now, so unless it’s a guy like Brock Lesnar coming in, Cena is going to come out on top. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think Cesaro had him beat a few times last night, and I literally jumped out of my seat when he started picking Cena up for the middle rope Neutralizer. You can praise Cesaro all you want (which I’m going to do) but wrestling is a dance, and you’re only as good as your dance partner. This is easily my favorite run in Cena’s career, and anyone who says he doesn’t do enough to elevate the rest of the roster, go back and watch every Raw since WrestleMania. He’s the real deal.

5. Cesaro

I want to be Cesaro. Not like him, I literally want to inhabit his body and mind. There’s a certain kind of magic when you’re watching someone who is just so good at what he does. When Cesaro comes out, he’s in great shape, but he doesn’t necessarily stand out. He’s bald with a beard, average height and weight. But when he starts moving around in the ring, or catching John Cena out of mid air, or flipping out of an AA and landing on his feet, you know you’re watching someone special. The knock on him has always been he doesn’t ‘connect’ with the audience. Well there were about 18,000 people in the Allstate Arena last night and Cesaro connected with every god damn one of them. Microphone skills are important, and so is the ability to relate to the fans, but when you’re as good inside that ring as Cesaro, those things really don’t matter as much. I was afraid that their match from last week would overshadow last night’s main event, but Cena and Cesaro went above and beyond and tore the house down. Cesaro has fought Cena before, and has been ‘pushed’ before, but main eventing Raw with John Cena is a step above all that. Hopefully he stays in this Owens/Cena feud, because that’s a triple threat match that needs to happen at Summerslam.

– Ryan