Reasons for NXT Call-Ups, Last Minute Haphazard Raw Booking, Seth Rollins Injury

There are reasons why Monday’s Raw felt very haphazard.

Seth Rollins Injury

According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Raw had to be heavily re-written on Monday. The original script had several Seth Rollins segments where he was supposed to get physical, but WWE learned on Monday that Rollins could not be cleared, so several segments had to be scrapped and lots of the show had to be re-written.

Rollins has a problem with a disc in his back, according to Meltzer. He doesn’t need surgery and will be fine after some rest, and he doesn’t appear to be in any danger of missing WrestleMania. It was thought that he could wrestle now if needed, but apparently that’s not the case, as WWE learned on Monday. But he’s apparently close to being cleared, so he should be OK soon.

Re-Writing Raw

Vince McMahon reportedly showed up at around 1 PM local time on Monday and from then on, the show was re-written. It was not done until 30 minutes into the show and they were still changing things into the second hour.

NXT Call-Ups

Vince McMahon had been feeling “off,” according to Meltzer, because of AEW, because of the Undertaker being booked on Starrcast, and because of low ratings.

He felt, correctly, that the product is stale, WWE doesn’t have enough superstars, and they need to make new superstars. He then reportedly essentially asked for the best four guys on NXT. It’s not clear if he specifically picked the four or if they were suggested to him by someone else. According to Meltzer, whether you can believe this or not, Triple H apparently didn’t know about the call-ups until after the decision was made.

The decision to call up Ciampa, Gargano, Ricochet and Aleister Black was made some time late last week. As of now, the plan is for them to wrestle on Raw, SmackDown and NXT.

Aleister Black had been on the radar to be called up for a while, but the decision to bring up Ricochet, Gargano and Ciampa appeared to come out of nowhere. Gargano and Ciampa are still in the middle of a major angle in NXT and NXT has plans for them at TakeOver during WrestleMania weekend. But now, at the same time that they’re supposed to be heels who are still semi-enemies on NXT, they’re a face tag team on the main roster.

Ricochet vs. Finn Balor

The original plan for Raw was a Ricochet vs. Finn Balor match, but Triple H reportedly had it changed because he felt that it was a bad idea, since they’re both faces, Balor just won the Intercontinental title, and they didn’t want Ricochet to lose in his debut.

So Triple H had it changed to a tag team match with Ricochet and Balor facing Lashley and Lio Rush. That also might explain why Lashley and Rush were back together with no explanation after Lashley attacked Rush at Elimination Chamber.