WWE Raw results, live blog (April 18, 2016): London calling

WE Monday Night Raw comes waltzing back into our lives tonight (April 18, 2016) from the O2 Arena in London, featuring all the latest build to the upcoming Payback pay-per-view (PPV) scheduled for early next month in Rosemont, Illinois.

Advertised for tonight: Roman Reigns continues to be "the guy", Shane McMahon might be running the show still but no one knows, and more!

Come right back here at 8 p.m. ET when the Raw live blog kicks off once the show starts on USA. It will be below this line here. (REMINDER: NO GIFS OR PICS ARE ALLOWED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. OFFENDERS WILL BE BANNED.)

NOTE: Due to the time difference, Raw will air pre-taped tonight. Spoilers for this show are HERE, and please keep discussion of those to that post. The comments section here should be kept SPOILER FREE.

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WWE RAW RESULTS AND LIVE BLOG FOR APRIL 18

Hey now, Cagesiders.

The Ambrose Asylum opens the show, with special guest Shane McMahon.

Dean does "wacky" comedy, and Shane puts over the new era of wrestling he's presiding over.

Kevin Owens interrupts, saying Shane's reign doesn't feel new to him since it's just a new guy screwing him over. Sami Zayn comes out to say he got to WWE before KO. Jericho came out to run down everyone in the ring but Owens, and say he's right about Shane.

Shane booked Jericho vs. Ambrose and Owens vs. Zayn for Payback, then exits the ring (with Dean's beloved potted plant). Ambrose attacks Owens, while Sami and Y2J battle. McMahon books the former for tonight's main event, and the latter for... RIGHT NOW!

Chris Jericho def. Sami Zayn

Good, fifteen minute (with commercials) bout won by Jericho after a thumb to the eye and then a Codebreaker.

AJ Styles is interviewed backstage by Mauro Ranallo when... oh snap, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows walk up. AJ takes over so he can catch up with his "brothers". They walk off to discuss some things.

Enzo Amore & Colin Cassady head out to a huge ovation. A bit of a rambling promo includes the boast that they're "like A cups, they're real whether you like them or not".

Enzo & Cass def. The Dudleyz to advance to the finals of the #1 contender tournament

Zo places face in peril, Cass cleans house but gets caught. He manages to dodge an attack by Bubba, so that takes out D-Von. Then he hits a big boot and tags Enzo for the Rocket Launcher

Roman Reigns will speak to us next.

The champ gets a loud reaction of boos and cheers. He delivers his "the guy" line and then puts over AJ - who will get THE BIG FIGHT from him at Payback. Romey will give THE BIG FIGHT to anyone in the "new era".

Styles comes out to a nice pop, and runs down Reigns attributes - saying he's a great champ. He'll need to have the match of his life to beat Roman, and having the match of his life is WHAT HE DO. It'll make him champ in two weeks.

Reigns basically says fans like AJ, he digs what Styles does in the ring, but he doesn't care if fans like him, they'll respect him after they he beats him. The Phenomenal One says he wants to be liked and respected.

As AJ leaves, ANDERSON & GALLOWS ATTACK! They hit him with their finisher as London roars and AJ looks on from the ramp in shock.

Backstage, Styles chases down Reigns to say he had nothing to do with the attack. Roman doesn't believe him, and tells him to bring all his friends to Payback, he's still getting a beating.

Baron Corbin def. Fandango

Dolph Ziggler is ringside. The Lone Wolf wins quickly, smashing the Show Off at commentary in the process. Ziggler jumps him post-match, but just gets beat up some more.

Puerto Rico is the shining star of the Carribean.

Maryse introduces your Intercontinental champion, who puts over his Hollywood credentials. The attractive couple runs down the English Royal Family, and is cut off by Cesaro, who steals Miz's "when my hand goes up, your mouth goes shut" line. They jaw about who will win the title at the next pay-per-view (PPV), and the champ says he and his wife are leaving because Cesaro has a match with Rusev.

The Swiss Superman says he spoke to Shane, and the match has been changed to...

Cesaro & The New Day def. Miz & League of Nations

Looong match with much hoss, ending with a rush of finishers. Cesaro hits the Neutralizer on Sheamus to end it.

Mauro welcomes the Flairs to an interview. They show last week's finish to the Women's title match, and Charlotte calls Ranallo worse than Dr. Phil. Natalya walks in, and reveals Shane has given her a rematch at Payback. And in her corner will be BRET HART.

Raw recap & reactions: Join the club!

WE returned to the USA network for Monday Night Raw last night (April 18, 2016) from London, England, and while there are still some of the same old problems there is plenty to be excited about as we head for Paybacknext month.

Click here to get full results with the live blog. Let's get to reacting to all the night's events.

The deadman's hand

Shane McMahon is, apparently, the personification of what Triple H represents to NXT, at least in the eyes of the fans who love the developmental brand. Triple H can't play the role, and you know a McMahon has to be given the credit, so they've attempted to channel the praise Haitch gets into Shane O'Mac.

It's working.

Kind of.

The reality, though we may be loathe to admit it at times, is that Triple H is an exceptional performer and Shane McMahon is not. He's beloved for a number of reasons, and none of them have anything to do with his leadership abilities.

Sure, it's nice to have a babyface authority figure, if only because it's a nice change of pace, but how much longer are we going to watch Shane fumble through his promos without acknowledging that fact? Why does the authority figure have to be an on-screen presence at all? Why not just let the issues between wrestlers play out in such a way that decisions can be made behind-the-scenes without fans needing to give some sort of undeserved credit?

It is entirely unnecessary to the success of the show itself. You are not watching Raw to see Shane book a match. Triple H is beloved, and that comes through during certain segments/matches, but it has nothing to do with the Triple H character. That character starts at its ceiling. There is nowhere to go but down.

And we're already seeing that.

They've also completely stopped pretending to care about giving us a reason for his running the show, which is actually as honest as they've ever been.

WWE WrestleMania Revenge tour: Triple H to fight Dean Ambrose after The Undertaker pulls out

The 14-time world champion Triple H and Shane McMahon will be joining WWE's European tour after The Undertaker pulled out of the show. There is speculation that The Undertaker might be planning his retirement from wrestling.

The Undertaker's last match was with Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 32. During the Hell in a Cell match, McMahon attempted to jump onto the ageing wrestler from the top of the cage, a height of around 20 feet. USpeaking about The Undertaker, WWE Hall of Famer and commentator Jim Ross said: "Undertaker being pulled from the imminent WWE tour of the UK and Ireland is troubling. I hope that Taker is healthy as he can be considering his tenure and his 'bump card' likely getting full. I still don't think that WWE would likely endorse Taker's retirement without a major marketing effort to celebrate The Deadman's amazing career in WWE."ndertaker moved at the last moment.

For the WrestleMania Revenge tour, Triple H will square off with Dean Ambrose and will be at hand for the event on 20, 21 and 22 April in the UK, Brussels and Paris respectively. The two wrestlers' previous encounter was at WWE Roadblock. Triple H's last fight was with Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight title at WrestleMania 32. The Game was defeated by the much younger wrestler Reigns.

Shane McMahon will also be making a special appearance for the taping of London Smackdown on 19 April. For the past two weeks, McMahon has been acting as the general manager of Monday Night RAW with the absence of his elder sister Stephanie. McMahon's tenure, while temporary, has seen some change for the event with a tag team tournament to determine the new contender for the WWE tag team titles.

Russian influence on the rise in Serbia

Russian influence on the rise in Serbia

At the end of a busy street an hour from Belgrade, past outdoor cafes, discount clothing stores and second-hand mobile phone outlets, artists at a tiny wax museum worked day and night for two months to complete a tribute to Vladimir Putin.

The figure stands alongside a Yugoslav communist party flag and a panoply of such local luminaries as late strongmen Slobodan Milosevic and Josip Broz Tito, thanks for Putin's support of Serbia's opposition to the Kosovo's independence.

"Around 75 percent of Serb citizens respect Putin and Russia, so we decided to let Putin be the first foreigner," said Dragan Markovic Palma, the mayor of Jagodina, which unveiled the statue last month. "Russia has helped a lot."

As Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic campaigns before April 24 general elections, his bid to prepare the country for European Union membership is facing a lurch to nationalism. It includes throw-back sentiment for Russia in the country of 7.2 million people as the EU is itself shaking under doubts about its future and resentment lingers over the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. One of the beneficiaries has been the Radical Party, which wants to end talks to join the trading bloc.

More than two decades after the fall of communism, Russia is once again courting the countries over which it once held sway. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has forged a $11 billion nuclear deal with Putin's government and tried to emulate his model in pursuing an "illiberal democracy." Czech President Milos Zeman and Slovak Premier Robert Fico have said EU relations should not come at the expense of Russia.

In Serbia, only 11 percent of voters said they believed joining the EU and NATO -- which bombed Serbs twice in the 1990s -- is good, while 72 percent saw it as bad, according to an April 10 opinion poll conducted by B92 TV and the Center for Free Elections and Democracy. That's far more pessimistic than the 48 percent for EU entry in a state poll by Serbia's European Integration Office, which doesn't measure backing for NATO entry. Meanwhile, eight of the 18 parties running for parliament are pro-Russian.

What's more, the pressure to veer Serbia's foreign-policy goals eastward comes alongside the creation of a slew of Russian-Serbian friendship societies such as the Association of Russian Descendants and the Strategic Culture Fund, a Russian-Serbian Internet site reporting on events in Serbia, Russia, Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

"A further increase in Russian sentiment is possible," said Jovo Bakic, a sociology professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. "And I wouldn't be surprised to see Vucic, after two or three years, changing his rhetoric if he sees that Russia, and not the EU, is what people want."

Still, with 3 billion euros ($3.42 billion) already allocated from EU coffers, Vucic has made readying Serbia for accession by 2020 his chief foreign-policy goal. Many Serbs see the EU, and not Russia, as a path to raising living standards like former federation partners Slovenia and Croatia, which joined the bloc in 2004 and 2013.

"We want good relations with Russia and we have them," Vucic said in an interview to local TV broadcaster Happy TV on March 21. "But we want and we are heading toward the European Union."

That approach is backed by foreign direct investment, mostly from the EU, which has steadily risen in Serbia over the past five years.

"The EU has been committed in enabling Serbia not only to eventually join the EU, but to make a real difference for its citizens," Michael Davenport, the head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, said in a statement on April 8.

Even so, there is still strong cultural affinity among Serbs with Russia, which helped communists win power under Tito after World War II. Both countries are Orthodox Christian and share the Cyrillic alphabet, unlike most other Slavic nations in the region.

For Russia's part, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said EU talks are the "absolutely the sovereign choice" for Serbia, but he rejected a "destructive either-or logic," which he blamed for "the profound crisis of Ukrainian statehood." The Kremlin denies accusations from the EU and the U.S. that it has backed insurgents with troops and arms to prevent Ukraine from shifting out of its sphere of influence.

Vucic maintains a strong lead in polls, with his Progressive Party showing support of 50.9 percent at end-March, according to a survey by Belgrade-based Faktor Plus published April 11. Still, he's warned that the acquittal of Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj of war crimes by the United Nations Hague Tribunal last month may undermine his ability to form a government.

Seselj is in third with 7.8 percent in the poll and says he said he may end up with more than a quarter of the vote following his acquittal. Deputy president under Milosevic when NATO bombing helped drive Serb forces out of Kosovo, he's calling for an end to EU talks.

"Our friends can only be those who didn't bomb us," he said at a news conference after his acquittal.

But he and other pro-Russian figures are running out of time to capitalize on feelings of Slavic friendship, especially among those who have suffered hardship since war devastated the economy two decades ago.

"We've got nothing in common with Russia," Aleksandar Radojkovic, a 38-year-old unemployed carpenter, said before jumping on a beat-up yellow bicycle in Jagodina. "Most things that come to Serbia come from the West, and if when we try to run away from here and find work somewhere, it's the West again, not Russia."

Take this quiz to find out how racist you are

This article was originally published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletter, or follow The Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter. The U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to hear the case of Miguel Angel Pena-Rodriguez, a Colorado man who argued the jury that convicted him of misdemeanor sexual offenses in 2007 was tainted by bias. During deliberations, a juror confided to others that he knew the defendant was guilty “because he is Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want.” The juror, an ex-law enforcement officer, also said that based on his experience, “nine times out of 10, Mexican men were guilty ...

They said what?! Pros react to Glover Teixeira's vicious KO of Rashad Evans

G lover Teixeira made it three wins in a row when he knocked Rashad Evans out cold in the opening round of the main event of UFC on Fox 19, in Tampa, Florida. After the fight, Teixeira called out Anthony Johnson (who was in attendance) for what would be a very interesting and exciting matchup. Will it get made next? Who knows?

Meanwhile, pro fighters were rather impressed by his performance on Twitter. Read their reactions below.

Why Obama is forgiving the student loans of nearly 400,000 people

Hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers will now have an easier path to getting their loans discharged, the Obama administration announced Tuesday.

The Department of Education will send letters to 387,000 people they’ve identified as being eligible for a total and permanent disability discharge, a designation that allows federal student loan borrowers who can’t work because of a disability to have their loans forgiven. The borrowers identified by the Department won’t have to go through the typical application process for receiving a disability discharge, which requires sending in documented proof of their disability. Instead, the borrower will simply have to sign and return the completed application enclosed in the letter.

If every borrower identified by the Department decides to have his or her debt forgiven, the government will end up discharging more than $7.7 billion in debt, according to the Department.

“Americans with disabilities have a right to student loan relief,” Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary of education, said in a statement. “And we need to make it easier, not harder, for them to receive the benefits they are due.”

About 179,000 of the borrowers identified by the Department are in default on their students

loans, and of that group more than 100,000 are at risk of having their tax refunds or Social Security checks garnished to pay off the debt. Often borrowers losing out on these benefits aren’t even aware that they’re eligible for a disability discharge, said Persis Yu, the director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project at the National Consumer Law Center.

“Borrowers just frankly don’t know about this program,” she said. “In the past it’s been incredibly complicated to apply and that process has been getting better over time, but some people just assume that it’s not going to work.” The letters will help make more borrowers aware of their rights, Yu said.

The government identified eligible borrowers by matching Department of Education data on

student loan borrowers with Social Security Administration data to determine which federal student loan borrowers are receiving disability benefits and whose conditions aren't expected to improve.

Yu commended the collaboration and applauded the announcement, but she said she wished it went one step further by automatically stopping collections and garnishment on borrowers the government identified as eligible for a disability discharge. The Department may struggle to reach some borrowers because they don’t have their most updated information on file, she noted. In addition, some borrowers who qualify for discharge because of a psychological reason -- such as anAlzheimer’s patient -- may not be capable of understanding the materials they receive, she said.

“We identify you as somebody who qualifies for this, so as long as we’ve identified you can we at least stop taking your money?” Yu said.

Eligible borrowers who do decide to take advantage of the discharge option should be aware that the forgiven debt may be considered taxable income. The Obama administration asked Congress in its 2017 budget proposal to get rid of the tax penalties for disability discharges, but meanwhile borrowers may find themselves paying taxes on the forgiven loans.

Despite these drawbacks, Adam Minsky, a Boston-based lawyer who specializes in student loan issues, said he’s “cautiously optimistic,” about the announcement and will be watching to see how it plays out. “When you’re already totally and permanently disabled it can be challenging to go through this process without some help,” he said. “If this helps people that are clearly eligible for discharge get one with less red tape, less waiting and less uncertainty, that’s great.”