SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Due to a major Comcast outage, I wasn’t able to watch Monday Night Raw on my DVR like usual, so I had to watch the edited version on Hulu. So, this Hits & Misses is based on what I was able to watch. Segments which were edited out include the 24/7 title match, the two appearances by Austin Theory, and parts of the longer matches.
Opening Segment – HIT: Raw got off to a pretty good start with Seth Rollins talking about what happened last week with Kevin Owens. Rollins was good, but not great here. Owens coming out to attack him worked well. It set up the main event and played into the frustrations which would build for Owens throughout the show. Those scenes of him in the back trying to convince his friends that he wasn’t lying about last week worked well throughout the show too.
RKBro & Street Profits vs. Dirty Dawgs & Styles & Omos – HIT: Part of the middle of this match was edited out, but what I saw was quite good. This isn’t surprising given the talent in the ring was quite high other than Omos, whose role was kept to a minimum. I liked the scene beforehand with Matt Riddle, Randy Orton and The Street Profits. I love how Orton is just being himself. He could not have cared less that the Street Profits were right behind him hearing him talk about them. The wrestling action I saw in this match was good. It played into Orton’s attempt to get Riddle to stop trying to take on Omos. I like the fact that in the end, despite being upset at Riddle for tagging himself into the match to fight Omos, he was going to come to Riddle’s aid. The bit at the end with Dolph Ziggler tagging himself into the match to steal the win worked well too. My only issue was how long it took to finally get the pin on Riddle. It was a long time where Riddle should have recovered despite the damage from Omos.
Pearce and the Mysterios – MISS: This segment was terrible and everything wrong with how WWE promotes SurvivorSeries in the Raw vs. Smackdown battle for supremacy era. Adam Pearce is in charge of both Raw and Smackdown. So why does he care which team wins? It isn’t like he’s running Raw and Sonya DeVille is running Smackdown. He also made the teams over the weekend, so why didn’t he just put Bobby Lashley on the team to begin with? If he wants Raw to win, why not make Smackdown’s team consist of Drew Gulak, Jinder Mahal, Madcap Moss, Mace and Mansoor? I have not liked seeing Sonya going heel in her role, especially on Smackdown with her treatment of Naomi. We saw a little more of a heel persona for Pearce in his dealing with Brock Lesnar. But, this was the most heelish presentation for Pearce so far. That is disappointing. This also didn’t play into any type of tension between Rey and Dominick, so that storyline seemed to get put on hold this week. The match with Dominick vs. Lashley that followed worked perfectly well for the story they were telling, but I wasn’t a fan of that story.
Big E vs. Gable – HIT: This was another good 5 minute match on Raw featuring Chad Gable. Last week it was against Finn Balor. This week it was against Big E. At some point, we need to see Gable in longer matches and getting some wins. It can’t just be him continuing to lose in 5 minutes while Ottis doesn’t get any matches. I’d rather see them in tag matches to bolster the tag division. It seems like they are setting up Ottis for a singles run. That can work well, but I’d still like to see Gable as a credible threat. All that said, this was a good match while it lasted and given that Big E is the WWE Champion, the shorter length probably made sense.
Women’s Backstage Segment – MISS: This was the worst segment on Raw. The way the SurvivorSeries teams were put together doesn’t make sense. The fact that Nikki Cross wasn’t included with her Tag Team Champion partner is stupid. She is a Champ. She deserves to be on the team, and if you want them to win, why not include a successful team? Why make the team members face each other in a fatal five way to determine the #1 contender for Becky Lynch’s Women’s Title? Don’t you want them to get along? Why have them wrestle each other this close to the PPV? Then we get this terrible segment with the petulant kids arguing, being catty to each other. Doudrop made a good point about Bianca Bel Air having a chance to get a Title match after just losing a title match last week. The problem is that Doudrop was positioned as a heel, so she shouldn’t make good points. Then we get Dana Brooke with the most idiotic moment of the show saying that she deserves to be on the team. She never wins. Her character is a person who sucks at her job and always complains about not getting a promotion despite sucking at her job. Nobody looked good here other than maybe Rhea Ripley for standing up for her partner.
Fatal Five Way – HIT: I didn’t like the set up for this match, but it was good enough to get a marginal Hit. The early part of the match was kind of dull. It took them a long time to really get going. But the match got better as it went. Liv Morgan was the predictable winner, but that works fine. Doudrop attacking Bel Air to cost her the match was fine to cement her as a heel and set up a feud. Bel Air needed a new opponent after losing to Becky Lynch last week and this has potential. Speaking of Becky, I thoroughly enjoyed her role on guest commentary during the match. She made the match more enjoyable to watch and helped land it in the Hit column.
Rollins vs. Owens – HIT: This was another long match which was partially edited for Hulu. Like the opening match, I enjoyed what I saw of it. Rollins and Owens are two of the best wrestlers in WWE. This wasn’t anything special, but a very good Raw main event. It built well from the storyline of the night of Owens’ growing frustrations. Big E costing Owens the match by getting in his way when he was trying to get back into the ring only to get counted out worked well. Rollins needed the win going into his eventual WWE Title match against Big E. Owens needed to lose because of Big E to give him a reason to snap and turn heel. That post-match beating was very good. My only issue is that I totally take Owens’ side in this. He apologized to Big E last week, yet Big E attacked him after their match. Big E won the match, so why was he upset? Owens tried to talk to him before the show, but E ignored him. Owens got no sympathy from his so called friends. And E got in his way and cost him the main event. Why was he even there? He didn’t have to be at ring side. I’m team Owens on this.
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.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.