Over the last several weeks, viewers of WWE Monday Night RAW have seen repeated collisions between Bronson Reed and Braun Strowman that became increasingly spectacular.
It started with Reed laying out superstar after superstar with his Tsunami splash, including former World champion Seth Rollins who he hit with seven of them in a memorable angle on the August 5th episode of RAW. He continued to do this for many weeks until he ran into the even larger Braun Strowman in a match on August 26th.
That match went to a no contest and ended when Reed hit Strowman with a Tsunami off a fence in the outside parking lot, putting him through the roof of a parked car in a memorable clash.
Strowman ended up returning early and worked his way into the finals of a 4-way for an Intercontinental title shot. A returning Reed put him through the ringside barricade, taking him out of that match on September 9th.
They spent the next two weeks attacking each other and brawling all over the building which led GM Adam Pearce to book a Last Monster Standing Match to take place on September 30th.
Two behemoths billed at 6 ft 330 lbs (Reed) and 6 ft 8, 385 lbs (Strowman) were set to square off with no rules and guaranteed chaos and that's exactly what they delivered.
No match, and build to a match, exemplifies the differences between the two leading North American wrestling companies than this brawl between Reed and Strowman and the upcoming World/Continental title match on Wednesday between Kazuchika Okada and Bryan Danielson. The latter was announced on X with less than two days notice and promises to be one of the best technical matches of the year.
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Last Monster Standing was anything but technical. The two "monsters" barely waited for the bell to ring before running into each other. If you can call what Strowman did "running."
They did the predictable spots of going through barricades and tables and each other before the chaos really began.
Reed dove through Strowman and a barricade and right into the first row of fans, who were plants. These "fans" reacted in a way unlike what you would normally see in something like this. They were very subtly selling things like sore necks and sheer terror, which led to a barrage of security guards and WWE officials coming out to check on them.
Meanwhile in the ring, Strowman was down and Reed hit him with a Tsunamic but the ref wasn't there. He was checking on the fans in the front row. Reed got angry and starting mowing through security and officials and even got in the face of Adam Pearce. This gave Strowman time to recover. He went to the top rope and did a crossbody dive on a pile of people at ringside and the fans in the building erupted. He had teased this spot last week before Reed backed off but this time he hit it.
Reed beat the 10 count and they ended up on the top rope. Reed did a superplex and 715 lbs of monsters went crashing through the mat and the impact destroyed the ring. This spot was first seen nearly 20 years ago with Big Show and Brock Lesnar and was repeated here to the same reaction. Chants of THIS IS AWESOME and HOLY SHIT as referees, security and the wrestlers themselves were laid out on the mat.
Both guys struggled to get to their feet and it appeared they both would before a returning Seth Rollins gave Reed a curb stomp on the ring steps to prevent him from getting up, giving the match to Strowman. It was a perfect bookend to the angle that started two months earlier and will likely lead to a 1 on match at Survivor Series, if not sooner. The full match from RAW is below.
Was it a 5 star match? Not in the traditional sense. But in terms of pure spectacle, it was all that and more. I didn't even know how to rate it but I usually just give the first number that comes to mind and I gave it 4.25 stars. I'm sure I will give Okada/Danielson a higher score. But I'm also sure I'll remember this match for far longer. The match currently has a score of 8.24/10 on Cagematch, which actually works out a little higher than my score when you factor in an upper limit of 10.
This feud elevated both men, provided weeks of entertaining action and built to a match that will likely draw viewers and or ticket sales and perfectly illustrates how WWE books when they're at their best.
