Heavy Machinery Debuts on WWE Raw With Squash Match Win Over Ascension

After popping up on both Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live last week, the Heavy Machinery tag [...]

After popping up on both Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live last week, the Heavy Machinery tag team made their in-ring debut on Raw this week with a squash match win over The Ascension.

Otis Dozovic, the more charismatic of the two, broke out a few of his goofier moves (including The Worm, renamed "The Caterpillar), before he and Tucker Knight closed things out with their Trash Compactor finisher.

The duo were part of six NXT call-ups that were announced back in December, including EC3, Nikki Cross and Lacey Evans. The inclusion of the other four has been somewhat of a mixed bag, as all of them have appeared on WWE television in the past two weeks but only Heavy Machinery and Cross have actually wrestled. EC3 (Ethan Carter III from his time in Impact Wrestling) is known for his mic skills but has not uttered a word while appearing backstage, while Evans finally cut a brief promo on Raw on Monday announcing she'd be entering the Women's Royal Rumble match.

The pair's debut was just one of a handful of major moments from an eventful Raw this week. The show opened with a promo involving Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar, Vince McMahon, Braun Strowman and Finn Balor that ended with Balor nearly picking up a win over Strowman before getting hit with an F-5 from Lesnar.

Elsewhere in the night The Revival failed once again to capture the Raw Tag Team Championships, this time with Curt Hawkins as the special guest referee. Hawkins prevented Dash and Dawson from cheating to win multiple times, and the pair attacked him after Bobby Roode and Chad Gable picked up the win. Hawkins was saved by Zack Ryder, who has barely appeared on Monday Night Raw over the past year but has plenty of history with Hawkins as podcast co-hosts and former WWE Tag Team Champions.

Over on the women's side Alexa Bliss announced she was returning to action for the first time since October as a competitor in Sunday's Women's Royal Rumble. The show closed out with an angle hyping up the Raw Women's Championship match, as Sasha Banks and Ronda Rousey traded words on the mic before Banks and Bayley picked up a tag team win over Rousey and Natalya.

This year's Royal Rumble event will take place on Jan. 27 at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona.

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