Seth Rollins Pins Dean Ambrose to Open WWE Raw, Earns Falls Count Anywhere Title Match

Monday Night Raw kicked off in hectic fashion this week as Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley opened [...]

By Connor Casey

Monday Night Raw kicked off in hectic fashion this week as Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley opened the show by brawling backstage while various wrestlers tried to hold both men back.

The fight eventually spilled out onto the entrance ramp before both men were pulled away. Things seemed to be over when the stage was clear and John Cena came out to cut a promo, but the brawl started up again when Lashley and Lio Rush interrupted Cena and Drew McIntyre. All four man started going at it and were eventually joined by Dean Ambrose and Finn Balor, setting up for a six-man tag team match as the first bout of the night.

The long match ended with Rollins taking out all three men and hitting Ambrose with a Curb Stomp for the pin. As he made he way backstage he walked up to Triple H, demanding that the two have an Intercontinental Championship match that night. Hunter, who had been trying to provoke Rollins in to being more vicious lately, agreed and made it a Falls Count Anywhere match.

The rivalry between Rollins and Ambrose stretches all the way back their days in the original incarnation of The Shield. The group attempted to reform in late 2017 but has handicapped by Ambrose going down with an injury that would keep him on the shelf until just before SummerSlam. He returned to help Rollins reclaim the Intercontinental Championship by stopping Drew McIntyre from interfering in a match with Rollins and then-champion Dolph Ziggler, and two reunited with Roman Reigns the following night to begin feuding with Ziggler, McIntyre and Braun Strowman.

Tragedy struck the group in October when Reigns revealed to the world that he had been diagnosed with leukemia and would need to step away from professional wrestling while he underwent treatment. On that same night Ambrose and Rollins recaptured the Raw Tag Team Championships, only for Ambrose to knock Rollins out with a Dirty Deeds moments later.

The two would finally clash at TLC, where Ambrose won the Intercontinental Championship after capitalizing on a mistake made by Rollins. The former champ tried to invoke his rematch clause weeks later, but was told by Triple H and the McMahon Family that rematch clauses were no longer a part of WWE's booking.

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