After a very physical Money in the Bank pay-per-view from Philadelphia, Raw had a lot of intrigue going into this week. What would be the next step in the Paul Heyman-CM Punk storyline? Would AJ and Dolph's relationship survive last night's miscommunication? Would we see the Wyatt family again? What's next for the Money in the Bank winners? All those questions and more were answered this past Monday from Brooklyn. The show literally started with a drum roll as the Brad Maddox era of Raw kicked off. The opening segment with Maddox and John Cena was the worst of the night by far. Maddox awkward delivery mixed with Cena and his over-the-top cheesiness did not land well for me. Add that to the fact, Maddox makes the overarching storyline of the night the fact that John Cena can pick his own SummerSlam opponent. There are many problems with this, none more prevalent the fact that Cena points out how stupid the idea is in that same segment. Then the rest of the night, it feels like less of a wrestling storyline and more like SummerSlam was the prom of WWE . And everybody wants to go with the star athlete. It just felt really odd. They added some McMahon craziness with Stephanie and Hunter warning Maddox making references that Vince would not like Daniel Bryan to get chosen. So it will be interesting to see what happens going forward. They also showed that Vickie Guerrero is attempting to get her job back. So we'll see where that goes as well. The one thing I liked in that opening segment is Randy Orton. Orton both at the pay-per-view and on this episode showed logic in a illogical world. The delivery in his promo was great and then we got Fandango. Fandango and Orton had a solid contest to open the show. With Orton looking strong it will be interesting to see where and when the Viper will strike next with his new captured WWE title opportunity. (If I had to wager a guess, I would say Daniel Bryan beats John Cena at SummerSlam then Orton takes advantage after the match winning the title.) The crowd in the Barclay Center was very vocal and was that way the whole night. While I think having a very passionate and invested crowd is good, There were times where much like the crowd at the Izod Center were a tad disrespectful. Not as bad as fans chanting Husky Harris to Bray Wyatt in his Raw debut last week, but I was still a little annoying. Speaking of disrespect, that seems to be one of the themes of the night. Dolph breaks it off with AJ and the Black Widow strikes the bell costing him a great rematch with Del Rio (How did she get back there with no one noticing?). Langston attacks him setting up a possible match for SummerSlam. While this has been playing out for the last few weeks, it still felt like it was a little abrupt to me. I thought there were a few more weeks in the storyline at least. Paul Heyman and CM Punk had a great segment that showed why these two are some of the best on the mic in the business today. When feuds gets personal things get turned up to a whole new level. And now Punk has quite the vendetta on his former mentor. Great brawl between Lesnar and the Straight Edge Savior to close out the segment. I loved the fact that Punk got a little bit of offense in then I thought he would. It should be interesting to see where this goes as we head into Los Angeles. There also seems to be a trend of turning heels babyfaces on this episode as well. Cody Rhodes attacks Damien Sandow after he loses for some reason for Christian (way to book Sandow strongly). This reminds a lot of the Shawn Spears-Cody Rhodes feud from OVW in 2006. I can see somehow Sandow losing the briefcase to Rhodes in a match in SummerSlam. I would imagine following the Hounds of Justice attack that Mark Henry will come back at some point in a bad ass face role fighting against the Shield. Interesting to see, the fans vote the Usos to face the fight against the Real Americans. It seems that Tons of Funk is on a downward decline. Solid match with The Usos going over I have to say though those neon shorts were a little too 1993 for my liking. The WWE really does seem to be sticking behind the brothers. I hope this keeps up as they definitely seem to be getting over. We had our Total Divas contest of the night as Naomi defeats Brie Bella. I hope Naomi gets a push finally as that girl is talented. Maybe she is the next in line for AJ and the Divas Title since Kaitlyn was nowhere to be found last night. This would be good brand synergy for the company. Bray Wyatt and his family destroy the returning R-Truth. It wasn't as impactful as the week before but not a bad segment It was very interesting that Sheamus did not appear on camera. Other than the parody commercial, The Great White was not seen. Judging from the pay-per-view on Sunday, it seems as Sheamus may have suffered some serious injuries going through that ladder. The action was solid all throughout the night, but without question the match of the show was RVD versus Y2J, Rob and Jericho gave it their all. Really good stuff. It will be interesting to see where you put Van Dam in the card going forward. Maybe it's ADR versus RVD in LA for SummerSlam? They also showed that Vickie Guerrero is attempting to get her job back. So we'll see where that goes as well. And much like the opening segment the closing segment was just Cena being goofy and really stalling for time. But boy did that crowd erupt when Daniel Bryan was called to the ring. I have a feeling that something is coming with Vince in regards to this match. So I don't want to get my hopes up. I will say this though, the visual of Cena facing off with Daniel Bryan was pretty cool. All in all, a pretty good episode of Monday Night Raw. We had some great action, great segments and character development and a little bit of WWE goofiness. But it wasn't that bad. The crowd definitely made it a lot better than what was. We are on the road to LA and SummerSlam. Buckle in it's going to be one hell of a ride.