Prior to Monday night's live Raw broadcast, the company taped matches for this week's episodes of Superstars, Main Event, and Smackdown. There were only five matches in total, as the pre-WrestleMania shows are typically clip-heavy. I attended the tapings last night, so here's my notes of what went down... Superstars Jack Swagger pinned Tyler Breeze with a Vader Bomb Main Event Ryback pinned Fandango with a Shell Shock Smackdown AJ Styles defeated Heath Slater in a competitive match. Slater got the heat when he knocked Styles off the turnbuckle and "The Phenomenal One" fell off and hit his face on the ring steps. Styles came back, fought off interference from the Social Outcasts, and got the pin with the Phenomenal Forearm. Prior to the match, Heath Slater cut a promo where he promised the Outcasts would win the "2011 Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal." D-Von Dudley defeated Jey Uso in a below average match. Uso made a comeback when D-Von missed a splash. He hit the hip attack in the corner, then put D-Von on the top rope. Bubba Ray tried to interfere, but Jimmy took him out. D-Von managed to slide out from under Jey, then hit a spinebuster for the win. In the main event, Dean Ambrose defeated Erick Rowan. Rowan came out onto the ramp with Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman, but Wyatt and Strowman went to the back before the match started. Rowan got the heat off a spinning slam and stayed on offense for a while, but Ambrose caught him with a superplex to make a comeback. They had a good finishing sequence with Ambrose hitting a tope and the rebound lariat and Rowan getting a spin kick. Ambrose won with the Dirty Deeds.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
