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WWE NETWORK REVIEW: RAW TALK
DECEMBER 7, 2020
REVIEW BY NICK MORGAN, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR
Hosts: Charly Caruso, R Truth
This week’s guests: Drew McIntyre, Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler, Shelton Benjamin
– Charly introduced the show and after the obligatory “CharTruth” reference, they briefly discussed and recapped the finish of the last match of the night between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt. They really sold the upcoming match between the Fiend and Randy on the upcoming TLC pay-per-view and then introduced Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander from the Hurt Business.
– Truth asked the first question and went full Truth in asking Shelton what it felt like to be born old, referencing Benjamin Button. Shelton corrected him and the joke totally died. As Charly asked about the night’s match with Kofi Kingston, and Shelton totally revised history by saying that the Hurt Business ended up winning, totally ignoring the fact that Kofi beat Shelton. Cedric made a point of the fact that he won, while Truth tried to bring up the fact that Kofi had already fought a match and had hurt his knee. Both Shelton and Cedric totally ignored everything except the fact that the Hurt Business won the night (What? Okay whatever.) They were perfect heels, totally ignoring reality and building themselves up.
– The segment was pretty good, and I give Truth credit for trying to point out the fact that Shelton actually lost to Kofi, while Shelton kept reiterating that the main point is that Kofi was “hurt” in his match with Shelton a member of the “Hurt Business.”
– As the Hurt Business left, Charly introduced Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax. Shayna had a bunch of attitude while Nia insulted Charly’s clothes. As Charly brought up the fact that Shayna lost on Raw and that they have been losing to Lana, both women got very angry and snotty, totally playing into their whole shtick. They discussed next week’s upcoming match next week between Lana and Nia and rather than cutting a promo to build up the match, they kept dumping on Charly’s outfit, not that effective in building heat, but they were annoying, which is not bad either. I am not a huge Nia fan and she did little here to improve my opinion, but Shayna had one of her better promo moments at the end of the segment as she claimed she was the best in the division and she would prove it.
– Next up was Drew McIntyre. Drew immediately said that yes, he realized that the kick from Sheamus was and accident and that their fight is what happens when two fighters get together and it was all good. At this point Sheamus came out and he and Drew hugged and made like there was no friction between them and even noted that during the fight backstage they both took some shots and Sheamus had a black eye that was swelling as we watched. Sheamus told them to hurry up and meet him at the bar and left the set. After he left, Drew started building up the upcoming match between him and A.J. Styles, that he has always wanted to fight A.J. and they just kept missing each other. He said it was going to be a war, but in the end, he would come out on top and remain the WWE champion. Really good, straight forward, babyface promo, great work Drew!
– With that, Charly said thank you, good night and signed off.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A good Raw Talk this week. All the guests were engaged and seemed to be jazzed up. While the Shayna and Nia segment was a little confusing with all the cross-talking, that is pretty much their things, so it was okay. I did like the way Shayna actually laid out the feud with Lana (and Asuka) at the end. I haven’t seen Shayna do that great on the promo front lately, but this was good. Shelton and Cedric were effectively heelish and frustrating in their refusal to admit that Kofi had actually beaten Shelton and was not 100% for his subsequent loss to Cedric. But that is the whole point. Good work.
The star of the show of course was Drew, and the Sheamus “run in” was great. I am not sure that it was originally laid out that way, but if it was, they did a great job making it seem like it was not planned or scripted. These two are doing great work together and with teasing discord between them and then revealing that everything was still alright with them is a great angle. Raw Talk tonight made me want to see it play out.
A solid “A+” for the Drew segment and a “B” for the rest of the show, making this a definite watch edition of Raw Talk. It moved fast and was run all around.
Well, that is it for now, see you all next week. Until then, take care and stay safe.
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