Paul Heyman Trends For RAW Wedding, Big Video Views For Liv Morgan's Return, Bobby Lashley On Heyman
As noted, last night's WWE RAW wedding of Lana and Bobby Lashley was crashed by Rusev and the returning Liv Morgan, but was met with loads of negative feedback from fans on social media.
Despite the bad feedback, the segment is drawing big views for WWE on YouTube as it looks like fans are treating the train-wreck as must-see viewing.
The wedding segment video currently has 2,081,415 YouTube video views as of this writing. The post-show segment of Lana throwing a fit while Liv and Rusev taunted her, which happened after RAW went off the air on the USA Network, has 1,530,795 video views on YouTube.
To compare, last night's RAW video of Randy Orton pulling a fake injury on AJ Styles currently has 1,483,124 YouTube views. The next most-viewed video from this week's RAW is Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens brawling with Seth Rollins and The Authors of Pain, which currently has 678,894 views on YouTube. The backstage segment with Owens and Rollins leaving the arena has 445,836 views as of this writing.
On a related note, RAW Executive Director Paul Heyman was trending worldwide on Twitter during the end of RAW and has been a hot topic on social media ever since. Heyman has trended as many fans are blaming him for the horrible wedding segment that closed the final WWE show of the decade.
There's no confirmation on Heyman being responsible for the wedding angle, but it's very possible. Lashley spoke with Sports Illustrated on Monday and it was noted by Justin Barrasso that Heyman has been "instrumental" in the storyline with Lana and Lashley vs. Rusev. It's been reported in the past that Heyman was working on plans for Liv's return, but very few people expected her to get involved with Lana, Lashley, and Rusev.
Barrasso also noted that Lashley is a "Heyman Guy" and asked him about what helped build their relationship. Lashley recalled how they first met in 2004.
"When I first started out, I came to OVW in 2004. There were a lot of different people who came through, and they were bringing different trainers and different writers putting the show together," Lashley recalled. "I remember when Paul Heyman first came, he called me up in the morning and said, 'Hey man, what are you doing? Let's go eat breakfast.' I'd never met Paul at this point, but we go and eat breakfast. It was unbelievable, we were there talking for four hours. I felt like I'd known him forever.
"I didn't know this at the time, but Paul saw me?this big, jacked up dude?and didn't know me. And none of the other writers knew who I was. They were just writing on what they thought they knew of me?that I should be like Mr. T and run around like, 'I pity the fool!' But that's not me. And that's why Paul wanted to sit down and talk. He knew he needed to write for this guy, but he didn't know who I was, and he wasn't going to just guess. So we just sat and talked forever, and he said, 'I get this guy.' And he got me over in a short amount of time."
Lashley continued and talked about what Heyman saw in him.
"I'm a very subtle person," Lashley said. "I come from a background where you shut up, you train, and you compete. That's what Paul saw, and everything he did from then on was highlighting who I was, not trying to put me in a box that didn't fit. That's why I was so excited when he came [as the Executive Director of Monday Night Raw], because I knew he gets me, could write for me, and put me in the right position and place on the show.
"Coming back now on the roster, it's completely different across the board?how people act, how people get over, how the story is put together. Everything is so different. Right now, we're trying to break me out of my comfort zone and have a little more fun."
Stay tuned for updates on fallout from the RAW wedding and what WWE might have planned for Liv, Rusev, Lana, and Lashley moving forward.