Bobby Lashley vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Title was originally scheduled for the 2021 Extreme Rules PPV. However, it was announced over the weekend that the match will be taking place on the September 13th 2021 edition of RAW instead. RAW was originally going to be headlined by RKBro defending the tag team titles against Lashley and MVP.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com commented on why the change was made:
“They moved the pay-per-view match to RAW. Originally they were going to do the tag team title match. The whole show last week was built to set up this tag team title match on this week’s RAW and then they pulled the match because they lost in the ratings and they’re putting Randy Orton and Bobby Lashley, the pay-per-view main event on TV tomorrow night. Yea, that’s among the responses [to AEW]. I’m not surprised.” (quote courtesy of WrestlingNews.co)
As previously noted, last week’s Dynamite beat RAW in the 18-49 demo with 681,000 viewers for AEW compared to RAW’s 678,000 viewers.
However, other reports state that AEW was not a factor in the Lashley vs. Orton match taking place on RAW. A WWE source reportedly said, “There are other reasons why the title match is being moved to Monday, and it has nothing to do with AEW.”
#TheViper @RandyOrton challenges The #AllMighty WWE Champion @fightbobby THIS MONDAY on #WWERaw! #WWETitle pic.twitter.com/R9gdP82Sri
— WWE (@WWE) September 11, 2021
