WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 11/23: Survivor Series Fallout, Expectations for Major Stories Moving Forward, Bliss vs. Cross

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
NOVEMBER 23, 2020
ORLANDO, FL. AT THE THUNDERDOME IN THE AMWAY CENTER
AIRS ON FOX NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EST
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton, and Samoa Joe

Match Results and Segments from Last Week

• Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton opened the show building towards their WWE Championship match later in the show. The Miz and John Morrison interrupted with Miz threatening to cash in his Money in the Bank contract.
• WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler and Lana defeated Raw Women’s Champion Asuka and Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke. Mandy was storyline injured in the match, covering for a legitimate injury suffered two weeks ago. Nia put Lana through the announce table with a Samoan Drop AGAIN after the match.
• Team Raw was shown bickering backstage. A.J. Styles handed out Raw t-shirts.
• Dana Brooke was attacked backstage when asked about Mandy’s condition. It was announced later that they removed from team Raw in favor of Lacey Evans & Peyton Royce.
• Bray Wyatt and Alexa Bliss appeared from the Firefly Funhouse hyping Bray’s match with the Miz later. Bray went on to defeat Miz. Miz tried to get out of it, but Alexa said that “he said no.” Alexa and Nikki Cross got into an altercation before the match.
• New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) defeated the Hurt Business (Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin to retain the Raw Tag Team Championship.
• Retribution (Mustafa Ali, Slapjack, T-Bar, and Mace) defeated Team Raw (Braun Strowman, Keith Lee, Sheamus, and Riddle).
• Jeff Hardy attacked Elias backstage after Elias posted photos looking for who attacked him during the Intercontinental Championship tournament over the summer. Elias still thinks Jeff did it.
• Angel Garza offered a rose again.
• Drew McIntyre defeated Randy Orton to regain the WWE Championship. Earlier in the evening, Sheamus gave him some items he though he’d never see again. It was a kilt and a sword, and he came out sporting said items.

Here are the exclusive interviews from last week:

Survivor Series Results

• “Mr. Money in the Bank” The Miz won a dual-branded Battle Royal (Kickoff Show).
• Team Raw (Braun Strowman, A.J. Styles, Riddle, Sheamus, and Keith Lee) swept team Smackdown (Kevin Owens, King Corbin, Seth Rollins, Otis, and Jey Uso in the men’s Survivor Series match.
• Smackdown Tag Team Champions the Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins) defeated Raw Tag Team Champions New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods).
• U.S. Champion Bobby Lashley, representing Raw, defeated Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn of Smackdown.
• Smackdown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks defeated Raw Women’s Champion Asuka.
• Lana was the sole survivor for the women’s Team Raw (herself, Women’s Tag Team Champions Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler, Peyton Royce, and Lacey Evans) defeating Team Smackdown (Bianca Belair, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Natalya, and Bayley.
• Universal Champion Roman Reigns defeated WWE Champion Drew McIntyre because of outside interference by Jey Uso.

Here are the exclusive interviews from last night:

Items Advertised by WWE

We’re now past Survivor Series and for some, mercifully so. We head towards TLC, which we learned last night will take place on Sunday December 20. It will be the first PPV emanating from Tropicana Field, home of the MLB AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays, in Tampa, FL in the series of shows that will take place in that venue starting with Smackdown on December 11. In the next few weeks, I will be making an announcement, which involves the TLC PPV, so pay attention to that either here or follow me on Twitter @FrankPeteani.

WWE’s preview is not up yet which is typical for the night after a PPV. They tend to post it closer to showtime. With nothing to preview I’ll briefly touch on what I expect moving forward.

UPDATE: They have since announced Nikki Cross vs. Alexa Bliss.

What’s Next for WWE Champion Drew McIntyre

With TLC coming our way in a month, I would expect a challenger to be lined up for Drew McIntyre, who regained the WWE Championship last week from Randy Orton. Here are some possible candidates:

• Randy Orton – While they’ve had a series of matches going back to SummerSlam, I don’t put it past WWE to have them go one more time. TLC could a fitting final match.
• Sheamus – Drew’s long-time friend was trying to get him on team Raw, but Drew was focused on regaining the championship. Sheamus presented him with a family heirloom last week, which helped Drew win back the title. With Sheamus technically being a heel, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him turn on his friend setting up a title match at TLC. It was at that event in 2009 where Sheamus first won the title, defeating John Cena.
• “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt – You can’t count out Bray, and TLC would be a time where they’d shoehorn him into a gimmick match, which is better suited for Bray. It would be a short build an odd to see them in a gimmick match when they have no history, but WWE has done this before so it wouldn’t surprise me.
  Braun Strowman – He seems more like a Royal Rumble opponent, but I can’t count him out.

On the lower end there’s Keith Lee and A.J. Styles. Styles could make the case he “captained” team Raw to a clean sweep of Smackdown. Keith has a brief history with Drew, but I don’t see them wanting to move forward with that right now. The Miz is always looming with the Money in the Bank contract.

Raw Women’s Champion Asuka

The way they’ve been presenting Asuka, what goes on with her isn’t really a major story, given they’ve been more focused on Lana as of late. Even though she had a title match with Asuka recently, I would suspect she could make a case for another since she was the sole survivor last night. I would do that on Raw and build up somebody else for TLC (assuming the title will be defended on the show). There’s a lot of chatter about Charlotte Flair coming back. There have been a few cryptic tweets suggesting so including these:

pic.twitter.com/MPQNIGls9Q

— Charlotte Flair (@MsCharlotteWWE) November 18, 2020

I miss you

— Charlotte Flair (@MsCharlotteWWE) November 18, 2020

Rhea Ripley could be summoned from NXT. She lost to Io Shirai last week in an attempt to regain their women’s championship, suggesting she could be main roster bound. I’m going to say it. Asuka is a champion of convenience. I’m not sure she’d have been champion had Becky Lynch did not go out on maternity leave combined with Charlotte getting hurt. She’s just keeping the seat warm and I believe Charlotte will be the one to regain the championship, and then they pivot to Charlotte vs. Rhea for the title. Shayna Baszler is a possibility, but I need to see her moved away from Nia Jax to believe it. I think she’s babysitting Nia because they don’t want to use Nia in a singles’ role.

Growth in The Hurt Business?

I don’t think their quest for gold is over. I believe at some point Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander will unseat New Day for the Raw Tag Team Championship. They had a chance last week, but that doesn’t preclude them from getting another. Look for a mechanism to get to another title match. I didn’t mention Bobby Lashley as a possible challenger to Drew McIntyre, but he remains a remote possibility despite being the U.S. Champion. He’s doing some of his best work under the guise of MVP. At some point I’d like to see that parlayed into a championship run.

Other Expectations and Final Thoughts

We head towards December, which is typically a time where things tend to be a little quiet. The Royal Rumble is right around the corner. I expect “maintenance” storylines for a little while meaning nothing big until they get ready to gear up for WrestleMania season. Everything will be different this year as we continue to navigate the COVID pandemic, so it’ll be interesting to watch things come together. I’m sure they will try to get some semblance of crowds as they move into Tropicana Field. Hopefully, they put shows together that make us want to watch as we head towards the holidays!

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Questions and discussion are welcome. Thank you for reading!