RAW Review: 16th November

Hello! Yes, the Reviews are finally back- it's been way too long. I wasn't anticipating having such a big gap this Month, but a combination of the International Break and me being way too tired to do a RAW Review last week- and well, here we are. Last Weeks RAW wasn't great, it was just a load of stuff that happened, but it was a Taped Show which took away any ounce of unpredictability that there still is in the WWE (more later). The Ratings/Viewership for last weeks show definitely reflected the general state of the product for last week, but with last night being the Go-Home for Survivor Series you had to hope there'd be an upswing.

The Brothers of Destruction & The Wyatts Promo
I didn't mind this segment. As far as Opening Segments go it's far from the worst one we've had this year, that almost goes without saying. Especially in the case of Taker and Bray's Promos they're so "out there" in the build for this match that they can be quite hit and miss. With that said I thought they both did a good enough job to sell the match. The Druids stuff was a bit weird, there'll inevitably be a "Did You Know?" "X" was a Druid and now he's Main Eventing Wrestlemania in 6 or 7 Years- but I'm convinced the Druids were actually children given their size. It's stupid that pretty much everything Bray does is make him look a bit shit.

The idea that they DIDN'T do a Survivor Series match between The Wyatts, The Brothers of Destruction and others is ridiculous. Instead we're getting a standard Tag Match where Bray may not even be involved. Not only that, it's The Undertaker and Kane- neither exactly work an "up tempo" style and a Survivor Series match will have given the opportunity to balance that out. I'm not saying the match will be bad on Sunday, but the idea of Kane wrestling Strowman/Rowan doesn't exactly excite me.

Kevin Owens v Neville- WWE Title Tournament
I don't think saying this match was good would surprise anyone. I know I say this a lot when it's "Good Worker A v Good Worker B" but it genuinely would be more of a surprise if they delivered a bad match.

It was arguably the main talking point from RAW along with the stuff they said in the Main Event, but the stuff with Owens being called "lazy" by Sabrina the Teenage Witch was quite funny. I'm not saying it's funny and she doesn't know what she's talking about, because to an extent I agree with her. I've made reference to it, without making it a big thing- but Owens isn't getting "lazy" but he's regressing slightly. When Owens debuted against Cena he was the leanest he's probably ever been as a Wrestler. Since then he's put a noticeable amount of weight back on- and while I don't care, he's just begging for Vince to take a disliking to him. That more than anything else is what's annoyed me about Owens over the last few months.

Tyler Breeze v R-Truth
They're really pissing me off with this Summer Rae/Tyler Breeze pairing. It is literally the easiest thing in the world to make these two seem like a "proper" pairing. FLUFFY STUFF. GET SUMMER RAE A PAIR OF FLUFFY BOOTS, GIVE HER A FLUFFY SLEEVELESS HOODIE AND HAVE SUMMER AND TYLER COLOUR COORDINATE. Of all the things I thought I'd be doing when I started this Blog about a Year and a Half ago- I didn't think I'd have to give Wardrobe Advice. Oh Yeah, there was a match- it was standard really.

Dean Ambrose v Dolph Ziggler- WWE Title Tournament
I liked this match, without ever getting close to any sort of "big" reaction/feeling toward it. The crowd weren't into much last night, but this match being Babyface v Babyface in-front of the crowd they had last night wasn't the best idea. They didn't know who they wanted to win, so they just randomly cheered stuff and never got that invested into the match. There isn't really much to talk about for this match, there was a load of moves, Dolph didn't nearly kill himself with a Headbutt this time- and Ambrose won. That's pretty much it.

The Ambrose Promo after was unnecessary. I rarely like After-Match Promos because they're usually quite "breathy" and the Ambrose Promo wasn't an exception. It just annoyed me more than anything else, and the "Ambrose Asylum" line was horrendous.

New Day v Ryback & The Usos
Can someone, anyone explain the logic of having Ryback being the focal point of this match? While it's not been announced I think it's accepted we're getting New Day v The Usos this Sunday. Then we've got Ryback who isn't even going to be on the card and just lost to Kalisto. Logic would have been to have New Day win with shenanigans/The Usos win by pinning Xavier. Instead the guy who isn't even on the card for Survivor Series ON THE GO-HOME SHOW destroying the Tag Champs. Sometimes I hate this show.

Triple H & Cesaro Backstage
The little Backstage things they did with Cesaro, Del Rio and Owens were pretty good all things considered. I'll talk about it more in the next segment, but the idea that Triple H needs "a guy" is an interesting angle and one they should/could still act upon with Roman.

Roman Reigns v Cesaro- WWE Title Tournament
The match was good, I'll start with that. The thing is, with these two in terms of a number of fans if it hadn't have been good all the blame would have been on Roman- and if it was then Cesaro "carried" him. But, it was a good match- and one that was quite fun. The problem with this match- and the tournament in general is it's just way too predictable. If anyone didn't have the four Semi-Finalists as the four Semi-Finalists when they predicted it then there's something wrong with them.

The thing is, they could easily have made this Tournament infinitely more interesting in an instant if Cesaro had won here. Every Tournament needs either an Underdog Story or an Upset to increase interest. Recent example being Japan beating South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. This Tournament hasn't had anything like that, and as already said it's been ridiculously predictable.

It's not even like Cesaro winning here meant Roman couldn't get the Title. It would have been such a simple angle to do, Roman loses and panics thinking he's lost his chance at the Title (again), takes Triple H's offer and gets inserted into the Final of the Tournament late on in the match (fucking over Ambrose in the process) and gets the Title. Then he says it was fair game seeing as the same thing happened to him at Mania, and it all goes from there. I don't like "short-term" booking designed to spike interest usually- but this is a case where I'd not only have encouraged it, but begged for it.

The Dudleys v The Ascension
To be blunt, why are The Dudleys still on the road? It's New Day and The Usos for presumably Survivor Series and TLC at the absolute minimum- although it may be The Dudleys, New Day and The Usos as a TLC Triple Threat next month thinking about it. The problem in that scenario is The Dudleys have lost so much momentum since they've been back- and New Day are as good as they are it's not even worth putting the Titles on The Dudleys at this point. One thing I'm certain about, having The Dudleys squash The Ascension again isn't going to change my mind about that.

Alberto Del Rio v Kalisto- WWE Title Tournament
The match was fun, but again it was way too predictable. They could have easily had Kalisto win this- again they need an upset in this Tournament, if nothing else than to shake the predictable feel of the Tournament. Del Rio's already back to his Pre-Return levels in-terms of interest because of this awful MexAmerica angle. I'm not saying they should be beating Del Rio left, right and centre- but seeing as they've abandoned the Swagger angle they could easily turn Kalisto and Del Rio into an angle. Then later down the road have Sin Cara turn on Kalisto and join Del Rio and Zeb and go from there. Again, this is not hard to do- so why WWE don't do it is beyond me.

Paige & Charlotte Contract Signing
Right then, this is going to be interesting. Firstly, this segment shouldn't have been the Main Event segment. I even said that before what happened, happened. The Divas have to be built to the point where they fit into a Main Event segment- they can't just be shoe-horned in as they were last night. It's stupid, nothing about the build for this match has indicated that it should be anywhere near the Main Event of RAW. I refuse to accept them being put in the Main Event, it's like that weird time-period last year where Mark Henry "rallying America" against fucking Rusev was in the Main Event. It just doesn't "fit".

Now onto what actually happened in the segment. I've seen varying reactions when it comes to the Reid comments. Call this a cop out, but I'm genuinely on the fence about it. For people saying how Charlotte and Ric must have agreed to it, I direct you to the Paul Bearer stuff where his Kids consented to Punk and Taker doing the angle. Then Punk did the urn stuff with Bearer's "ashes" which they knew about- and then hated in execution. Also, Charlotte's been on the Main Roster for around about 6 Months- she wasn't saying "no" to anything the writers suggested once they said she was Main Eventing. At the end of the day, it's Wrestling- there isn't much room for personal feelings and if it convinced one person to either buy the PPV or sign up for the WWE Network then it did it's job. I didn't like it, not for the Reid comments- but it was just a generally shit angle with bad execution.

Overall this RAW wasn't great. It might be because I've been a bit under the weather recently- but I just struggled to really engage in the show last night. There was just a load of stuff happening with varying degrees of stupidity. With that said, we can only hope for the best from Survivor Series where we've got another two Reigns matches to look forward to! Oh the joy!

Thanks for reading as always, I'm sorry for missing last weeks Review- but there really wasn't much to be said about it and it would have been rushed because I was tired to the point where I slept right through until about an Hour before I try and put these up. Anyway, they're back now- and hopefully here to stay. November was always going to be a bit of a slow month, but December promises to be a busy one- and you'll see the return of The Sammy Awards. So that's something to look forward to.Thanks again for reading, I'll be back with the Survivor Series Predictions on Sunday- in the mean time have a good week AND SOMEONE GET SUMMER RAE SOME FLUFFY BOOTS FOR FUCK SAKE.