Vince McMahon was responsible for a number of changes to Monday’s episode of WWE RAW.
Finn Balor attacked World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins, who was supposed to host an open challenge for his title, in the show’s opening segment.
According to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select, McMahon made “drastic changes” to the show, including the opening segment with Rollins.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the original plan was for Rollins to host the challenge in the opening segment.
Dave Meltzer discussed the situation on the Wrestling Observer Radio.
“That was the plan [open challenge]. The open challenge was supposed to happen till the last minute. Vince changed the first 30 minutes of the show…I heard, was totally changed.”
Meltzer added, “Vince really wanted this whole Seth Rollins angle with Finn Balor. I think he just wanted something big, something bigger for Seth Rollins and Finn Balor, because I think it’s just to heat up Finn Balor. To be fair, I know people who are there who told me, ‘Look, as far as the 30 minutes that Vince put in, it was better than the 30 minutes that was taken out’. So whatever that means. They worked really hard at building Seth Rollins-Finn Balor.”
As PWMania.com previously reported, Tommaso Ciampa was set to return as the man answering the open challenge for Seth Rollins’ WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
