WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER 12/7: Drew & Sheamus vs. A.J. & Miz & Morrison in a Handicap Match, Viper Visits the Firefly Funhouse, More Build Towards TLC 2020

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
DECEMBER 7, 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

• Randy Orton opened the show on A Moment of Bliss with Alexa Bliss. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt appeared, and Alexa was in Randy’s arms. He then handed her to Bray and walked away. Randy and Bray renew their long-time feud at TLC in a one-on-one match.
• Jeff Hardy defeated Elias in a Symphony of Destruction match.
• Slapjack (Retribution) defeated Ricochet.
• Sheamus appeared on MizTV. The segment ended in Miz, John Morrison, and Sheamus going at it.
• Raw Women’s Champion Asuka & Lana defeated Women’s Tag Team Champions Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler in a non-title match. It was announced later in the week that Asuka & Lana will get a shot at the titles at TLC.
• Cedric Alexander (Hurt Business) defeated Xavier Woods (Raw Tag Team Champions New Day)
• Riddle did a bunch of stupid comedy.
• A.J. Styles defeated Keith Lee and Riddle in a triple threat match to earn the right to face Drew McIntyre at TLC for the WWE Championship.
  Dana Brooke defeated Mia Yim. Yeah, I know she’s Reckoning of Retribution. It’s a stupid name and a dumb use of her. Her mask was off during the match.
• Drew McIntyre & Sheamus defeated Miz & John Morrison via DQ. After the match A.J. tried to get Miz to cash in his Money in the Bank contract on Drew. Drew stopped it, and had a stare down with A.J., his TLC opponent.

Here are WWE exclusives from last week:

Items Advertised by WWE

TLC is taking shape with three matches in place from Raw. We’ll see if any more get set up starting tonight. I’m curious if they set up a TLC match from the Raw side since they have one for Smackdown (Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens for the Universal Championship). That said, WWE doesn’t have their preview up (shocking), but they’ve announced a match and a segment for tonight according to our good friend Jason Powell from prowrestling.net:

• Drew McIntyre & Sheamus vs. A.J. Styles and the Miz & John Morrison in a handicap match.
• Randy Orton to visit the Firefly Funhouse

Handicap Match: WWE Champion Drew McIntyre & Sheamus vs. A.J. Styles and the Miz & John Morrison

Following up on last week’s main event, Drew McIntyre & Sheamus team up again to take on A.J. Styles and the Miz & John Morrison in a handicap match. I mentioned what happened on MizTV as well as in the match. In between those proceedings, Sheamus sarcastically “thanked” his friend Drew for helping him during the MizTV segment (Drew of course did not come out to help Sheamus). He suggested that’s why they get along so well, because Sheamus would have done the same.

We found out this past week that the WWE Championship match between Drew McIntyre and challenger A.J. Styles will be a TLC match, which now holds true for both world championship matches coming up. That will certainly add some intensity between these two in storyline. They have faced before, but in a triple threat match last year which ironically involved Drew’s last rival in Randy Orton. Here’s a clip of that match:

Frank’s Analysis: I would be curious if Drew and or A.J. explain why this is now a TLC match. I get that they will most certainly deliver, but that’s not the point. These two haven’t had a feud to lead to such an intense match. That said, we’ll see if they justify it. In addition, look to see if more seeds are planted for a breakup between Drew and Sheamus. I wouldn’t do it right away, but we all know WWE can’t help themselves sometimes.

Firefly Funhouse: Randy Orton Visits

Also announced for TLC was a one-on-one match between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt. They last feuded from late 2016-’17 which ended in a House of Horrors match at Payback when Randy was WWE Champion and a babyface. WWE has often been referring to when Randy burned down Bray’s cabin ahead of their match at WrestleMania, which was the culmination of Randy infiltrating the Wyatt Family.

I briefly mentioned what happened on A Moment of Bliss last week. Randy figured out that Bray’s weakness is likely Alexa Bliss herself. Tonight, Randy visits the Firefly Funhouse, and we’ll see how they follow up on that as well as if any stipulation is added to the match. Everyone has been quiet on social media.

Frank’s Analysis: I’m intrigued by the feud but I’m still not sure how to feel about everybody. I can’t look at Bray as a babyface because of how bad Alexa has been to Nikki Cross. Randy has kicked legends in the face all year, so why would I suddenly cheer him? It’s Freddy Kruger vs. Mike Myers (not the PWTorch contributor but from Halloween) or Jason from Friday the 13th, so if you’re into that then this feud is for you.

Other Expectations and Final Thoughts

Remember that tonight’s edition of Raw is the last show in the series from Amway Center. They’ll move to Tropicana Field in Tampa, FL. starting with Friday’s edition of Smackdown. It’ll be interesting to see what that looks like and if fans start to make their way back to events once the vaccine gets rolled out. That said, look for my new show in the VIP lineup called WWE: Then and Now. I will record with long-time Pro Wrestling Torch columnist Greg Parks on Thursday night, doing a full round table review of TLC 2009. We’ll then run down the results of last year’s TLC and talk about the progression of the major characters in that show over the past year. I very much look forward to this and hope you enjoy!

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!