WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 12/17: Vince McMahon, Angle vs. Corbin, Antiquated Title Rematch Clause, Gauntlet Match

RAW HITS

Balor vs. Ziggler: I am not a big fan of what WWE is doing with this three-way feud between Finn Balor, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre. But, it has resulted in some good matches, particularly McIntyre vs. Ziggler from a few weeks ago and McIntyre vs. Balor at TLC. This match wasn’t as good, but it was still good enough to get a Hit. It featured 10 minutes of good wrestling action before McIntyre got involved, beating both guys up. That was a cheap ending that brought the match down, but it was a good idea to have McIntyre standing tall over both Balor and Ziggler after what happened at TLC.

Antiquated Rematch Clause: Of all the ways that the McMahon family shook things up on Raw (more later), the one that intrigued me was Shane calling the automatic rematch clause “antiquated.” After a long chase where the challenger has faced the Champion multiple times already, we don’t want to see another match between the two, but they have to have the automatic rematch. There have been times where I want to see a new challenger brought in, but they have to get that pesky rematch out of the way. In a lot of cases, it will make sense to have the rematch and I’m guessing WWE still will much of the time. But by saying that it isn’t automatic, they can pick and choose when to do one when it makes sense.

Fatal Four-Way Tag Match: This was a solid to good fatal four way tag team match to determine a new #1 contender for Bobby Roode & Chad Gable’s Tag Team Titles. It wasn’t great and I’m not a fan of the tag team triple threat or fatal four way rules with only two wrestlers in the ring at one time (like we saw on TLC too). But, the wrestlers here did a nice job within those rules. It was well booked. The final few minutes were particularly good with the action picking up steam leading to the Revival getting the win. Part of this Hit is for the right team winning. I am a fan of AOP, but they need to be rehabilitated before going after the Titles again. Part of this Hit is also for doing away with the Lucha House Party rules.

Good Gauntlet: While I didn’t like the set up for the gauntlet and the first two matches weren’t good (more later), there was good wrestling in it. It got going well with the third segment featuring Bayley vs. Mickie James. They played nicely into Bayley having already had two matches with her playing the underdog role perfectly and James taking advantage. It had good wrestling action and told a nice story. It would not have been a Hit as a regular match, but in the context of the gauntlet, it was quite good. That was followed by Ember Moon vs. James which was also good. This felt like a match that would have been a Hit on its own. The next segment, Natalya vs. Moon was too short to amount to much, and while the roll up win made sense to get Moon out quickly without damaging her, we already saw a roll up win in the fist segment. After their Tables Match at the PPV, we didn’t need to see Ruby Riott vs. Natalya again, and we didn’t need to see another roll up win (two in a row and three over all). At this point, the gauntlet was dragging (while I’m not giving these two sections a Miss, they were not part of the Hit). It ended strong with Natalya vs. Sasha Banks. This was a good match with the right outcome as Natalya earned the Title shot next week against Ronda Rousey. A lot of people (including me) have thought that a Natalya heel turn on Rousey is inevitable. Will it happen next week? Or will it be a turn for Rousey following up on her actions in the main event at TLC?

RAW MISSES

McMahon Shake Up: There have been a lot of problems on Raw, but the solution to those problems hasn’t been more of the McMahon family. I didn’t need to see Vince, Stephanie, Triple H and Shane come out, get along and work together (what happened to the hatred between the siblings just a month ago at Survivor Series?) to make the show better. They should just make the show better. Don’t talk about it, do it. If they play babyface authority figures going forward, then that is a good thing. But, they don’t need to be on all the time. Less authority figures would make the show better. One of the problems with Raw has been Baron Corbin being on too much. Well here, while losing power, he was still on a lot. So, how is that fixing the problem? New wrestlers and new match ups are fine, but only if the wrestlers are used well and the match ups are compelling. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that they will be. And just like there is too much happening after WrestleMania during the Superstar Shake Up every year, I fear that introducing a bunch of new NXT call ups while also featuring the return of two injured stars is going to have that “too much at one time” feeling. Triple H pandering to the audience by calling them “the new Authority” was stupid. So much of what they said felt like empty rhetoric and then they were plastered all over the show. I wasn’t a fan of anything that happened in the first few segments.

Angle Etc. vs. Corbin: As I said above, there was a lot of Corbin on this show. We saw him get his comeuppance at the TLC PPV the night before. I was there. It was a fun moment and a nice surprise with Kurt Angle coming out. This match on Raw felt like a rerun. We didn’t need to see it again. To me, it cheapened what I got to see live the night before. It was also a case of scapegoating the character of Corbin for the failures of the actual McMahons who are writing this show. They transferred heat from themselves to Corbin and then had these guys beat the crap out of him to the delight of the audience. But why were they cheering for Vince McMahon who has been responsible for the terrible Raws that we’ve been getting lately? I don’t get that.

Ambrose – Rollins: There were some good moments here, but not enough to save it from the Miss column. Dean Ambrose was good in his promo to start things off, talking about winning the Intercontinental Championship from Seth Rollins the night before. But, the open challenge didn’t work. It is a better deal for a babyface to do instead of a heel, although I get the idea here being that Ambrose was trying to do the same thing that Rollins did in the past. Of course, they had the way too convenient moment of Tyler Breeze standing by in case he did an open challenge. At least John Cena would announce it ahead of time so wrestlers could be ready to accept the challenge. The match itself was solid, but Breeze is a joke of a wrestler who got in way too much offense over the new IC Champion. And then the attack from Rollins dressed up as one of Ambrose’s SWAT team members came too quickly. It was predictable that it would happen at some point, but WWE went to it too soon in the gimmick. Ambrose hasn’t had the SWAT team long enough. The commentary hasn’t been good because of the real life marriage between Ambrose and Renee Young. I was particularly irked during the match when she said how happy she was to have a fighting IC Champion. There was no push back from Michael Cole or Corey Graves that Rollins was the one who started the open challenge in the first place. He was a fighting Champion. Someone should have countered her on that.

Lashley – Elias: This was more of the same crap that we’ve seen between Bobby Lashley and Elias which has turned off viewers. This is a case where they didn’t do what they said they were going to do. This was the exact opposite of fresh new content for Raw.

Gauntlet Set Up: Someone needs to rethink how Rousey is being scripted. It wasn’t terrible. Her performance was strong, but the scripting was the issue. I liked how it started with her addressing what she did the night before to Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. But, she lost me when she started talking about Champions being the pinnacle of the human race or whatever. I appreciate the fact that she is a fighting Champion and wanted to start a tradition of Champions always defending the Titles the night after a PPV. That came across as a badass thing to say to show how she’s always ready for a fight. I liked the idea that multiple women came forward to accept the challenge. But the way they did that was annoying. The women all yelling at each other and the audio technicians in the back was bad. The way they all snapped to attention and followed Stephanie when she barked orders at them made them look small. That is more of the same from her, not something fresh. Then she said they all deserved a Title match. What? Most of them had done nothing to deserve one. James just got one and lost, so she didn’t deserve one. Dana Brooke never wins, so she didn’t deserve one. Alicia Fox lost the night before. So did Riott. I expected a battle royal, but we got the gauntlet instead. That didn’t make sense either. Stephanie talked about being fair and giving everyone opportunities, but how was that fair to Bayley and Fox who she chose (not at random) to start the match? The first two matches of the gauntlet weren’t very good either, so there was a long stretch of some bad tv to start the third hour of Raw.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell’s views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET’s “Hitlist” section here.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonMezzera.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 12/10: Rollins speaking for WWE, Ambrose interview, Rollins vs. Corbin at TLC, Elias, Jim Neidhart, Raw Sucks, Jax-Rousey