It’s really amazing how an energetic, smart opening, quality
wrestling matches, solid promos and lack of stupid drivel can make three hours
breeze by, but that’s exactly what we got Monday night.
Raw delivered several bouts that varied between good to
really good, including a hot opening match between Jason Jordan and Roman
Reigns, a main event between the rest of the Shield and the Bar, and a
surprisingly engaging cruiserweight four-way match that nearly stole the show.
Along the way, we learned that Roman can get cheered – if he’s
up against someone the fans hate more, in this case, Jordan. We learned that
Matt Hardy is indeed #Woken, but might not yet be #Broken. Regardless, Hardy is
partnered with the right man as his new persona emerges in Bray Wyatt.
We also learned that the women’s division is more
interesting than it has been in the past several months, with Paige and her new
group Absolution running roughshod over the division. And we unfortunately saw
Finn Balor go from standing up to Kane to vanquishing Bo Dallas, all in the span
of a week.
All said, this was a really solid, entertaining episode of
Raw. It’ll be interesting to see if it continues as the holiday season
approaches, which typically results in a slowdown of angles.
Let’s find out what speared the competition and what got
powerslammed. Let’s get to it…
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.