During WWE Saturday Night's Main Event on November 1st, it was announced that there will be a tournament to crown who gets to face John Cena in his last match, which will go down on the next WWE Saturday Night's Main Event special, set for December 13th.
The 16 men competing in the tournament were supposed to be chosen at random and would feature talent from Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and possibly elsewhere (not specifying what that necessarily means.)
Now, we know 4 of the competitors, as revealed on tonight's episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.
Using the golden tumblr that is brought out to pick numbers during the Royal Rumble, Raw General Manager Adam Pearce pulled four names to set up the first two first round matches, both being inter-promotional bouts.
Rusev will go up against SmackDown's Damian Priest, and Sheamus will battle Shinsuke Nakamura, also from the blue brand.
WWE is going to slow drip this, as on Friday Night SmackDown this upcoming week, SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis is going to reveal only four more competitors with another set of first-round matches. The implication there being that next week's Raw (taking place November 10th at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts) will announce the next four, and next week's SmackDown will round out the tournament, all promoting matches for the November 17th and November 21st episodes.
Click here for the remaining full WWE Monday NIght Raw results for this week's episode, and check out this explanation of the two title matches to come next week.
This is the November 10th Raw card as of right now:
- Women's World Championship Match: Stephanie Vaquer (c) vs. Raquel Rodriguez
- The Last Time is Now Tournament First-Round Match: Rusev vs. Damian Priest
- The Last Time is Now Tournament First-Round Match: Sheamus vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
- WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Match: Alexa Bliss & Charlotte Flair (c) vs. The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka & Kairi Sane)
What do you think about those first four picks? Tell us in the comments!