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WWE News: Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs Coming to Raw Next Week

By Shawn Lealos
Published on: 06:46 PST, Aug 1, 2016

When the WWE Draft split up WWE Monday Night Raw and Smackdown Live, the original thought was that the Smackdown Live brand would be about in-ring wrestling while Raw would remain “sports entertainment.” After the first week, it was Raw that blew fans away with the in-ring wrestling, but it sounds like entertainment is coming back to WWE Monday Night Raw.

Rolling Stone reported on Monday that rap star and producer Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs would be coming to WWE Monday Night Raw next week for the Aug. 8 episode of the show. While many wrestling fans groan when celebrities are making appearances on WWE television, these celebs do bring in fresh eyes to see what they are there for.

WWE.com confirmed the report and said that Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs would, in fact, be a guest star on Monday Night Raw. This also isn’t the first time that Puff Daddy has appeared in the WWE. Sean Combs appeared with the WWE in a Tribute to the Troops episode back in 2010, and he also performed at WrestleMania 29 in a segment to combat bullying and asking kids to stand up to bullies.

The WrestleMania 29 appearance was the last time that Puff Daddy was seen in the WWE. There is no word yet on what the WWE has planned for Sean Combs, but with WWE Monday Night Raw, expect him to take to the ring for at last one segment to get involved in some storyline.

This isn’t the only rap star to make an appearance for the WWE this year either. Snoop Dogg was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. Snoop Dogg also made an appearance at the side of his niece, Sasha Banks, after that induction.

This is interesting timing because Sasha Banks just won the WWE Women’s Championship last week on the first WWE Monday Night Raw episode following the WWE Draft and brand split. It seemed like the perfect chance for Snoop Dogg to make his return, but the WWE might want Sasha Banks to stand on her own.

WWE Monday Night Raw has really cut back on the number of guest stars to appear on the show in 2016. Outside of Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, the only other real guest star to show up in any kind of extended role was Dr. Phil, who took part in an angle with Charlotte and “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.

Other celebrities appeared in the audience of Monday Night Raw, but Puff Daddy is the only other announced guest star so far in 2016. In 2015, the most famous guest star was Stephen Amell, the star of the DC Comics series Arrow. While his appearance was just an audience member at first, he ended up feuding with Stardust and wrestled in an actual match last year. Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and Jon Stewart were also guest stars in 2015.

The first WWE Monday Night Raw following the WWE Draft had a nice spike in viewers. Over three million viewers were tuned in each hour, with an average of 3.338 million watching the show. That was an increase of over 205,000 viewers from the previous week’s Monday Night Raw, and it was in competition with the Democratic national Convention, which combined for over 13 million viewers on three different networks.

The WWE also worked hard to win over wrestling fans to the new Monday Night Raw, having Sasha Banks beat Charlotte for the WWE Women’s Championship and new arrival Finn Balor pin Roman Reigns to become the new number one contender to the WWE Universal Championship. Balor will face Seth Rollins for the title at SummerSlam.

WWE Monday Night Raw airs on Monday nights at 8 p.m. EST on the USA Network.

[Image via WWE]

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