What to do when Plan A fails and Plan B has stumbled out of the gate? That’s what happened on Monday Night 21 July, Raw, and if you’re Triple H, you take matters into your own hands.
The Game, who was left kicking dirt after John Cena retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WWE Battleground and Seth Rollins was pummeled into retreat by Dean Ambrose, took it upon himself to take control of the crown jewel’s fate, promising to name Cena’s SummerSlam challenger by night’s end.
His hesitance to name either of his lieutenants — Randy Orton or Kane — as The Champ’s foe led to yet another bout of infighting among the corporate cabal that was soon joined in physical fashion by Roman Reigns.
The Game devised a plan: a Handicap Match that would either feed the former Hound to his dogs, or see him rise above them.
Then, the old saying about houses divided against themselves proved truer than ever on Raw: Not only can they not stand, but they’re likely to blow over with a light gust of wind, to say nothing of a Superman Punch. Roman Reigns, having ran his mouth in Raw’s opening moments, packed the wallop necessary to back it up when he knocked off the fragile alliance of Randy Orton & Kane in Raw’s opening match.
Despite a shaky, albeit steady, united front early in the match, “best for business” proved to be a tenuous glue between The Viper and the former Director of Operations: Further squabbles between the team caused Kane to target Orton when The Viper refused to tag in and Reigns capitalized. The Big Dog blasted the demon with the 1-2 combo of the Superman Punch and Spear for the win, and for all his own talk, Randy Orton wanted no part of the former WWE Tag Team Champion when all was said and done.