5 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 16)
The Shield is back, a Demon fights back against Sister Abigail and another Demon resurfaces.
Pop quiz: Is there a PPV Sunday? What’s the main event? Are you excited?
Now, a more important follow-up: What else is on the card for Sunday? Are you excited for any of that?
Monday Night Raw was the go-home show for the TLC PPV, a one-trick pony if there ever was one. The Shield is reuniting for the first time in more than three years, and they’ll face five men in a tables, ladders and chairs match. That is the entire hook for the PPV. No one is trying to sell TLC on the Kalisto/Enzo Amore match, or Alexa Bliss/Mickie James (though that feud has turned out better than you would have predicted a month ago).
Raw featured a steel cage match between Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman that plodded along until a “shocking” return ground things to a halt. It added an element to the TLC main event that could be described as “subtraction by addition.”
Perhaps the worst thing about Raw was a parlor trick that was on the level of Warrior appearing in a mirror that only Hollywood Hogan could see on WCW Nitro back in 1998. Worse yet, it involved someone who should be above crap like that, Finn Balor.
With that said, let’s find out what clicked and what clanked. Let’s get to it…