2 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (5 Oct - Results & Review)
WWE produces wildly disappointing go-home show ahead of Money In The Bank.
If you tuned in to WWE Raw on Monday night, you would be forgiven if you didn’t realise WWE is holding one of its biggest PLEs of the year this weekend.
With Money In The Bank – which has been considered important enough of an event to turn the “Big 4” into a “Big 5” of WWE PLEs – on the horizon, you would think they would be going all out to sell the show. However, whilst they did deliver the requisite promos from World Title contenders, aired video packages and showcased the MITB ladder match participants, this was a massively underwhelming program.
The matches varied from blasé to passable. The World Heavyweight Championship closing promo exchange underdelivered. The Women’s World Championship picture developed exactly as expected, but took a long time to get there and did it in an unimaginative manner.
Worst of all, despite all 6 participants in the 2 MITB ladder matches getting plenty of screen time, they didn’t get a chance – save for Roxanne Perez – to talk about how winning the briefcase would be life-changing, or how it would leave them one step shy of becoming a World Champ. WWE counted on the presence of the ladders on the stage and the briefcases hanging above the ring to sell the main matches. That’s horribly irresponsible.
Then there’s WWE’s "Gang Wars", which could be summed up by pointing to how Roman Reigns dealt with them while on Raw Monday night; he basically ignored it, only stepping in disgustedly to set up a 6-man elimination tag for next week (because that’s how gang wars end...), but scoffing at the idea of getting involved any further.
If the feud between the Bloodline and 946 is beneath the guy who supposedly makes everything run on Raw, then why should any of us care?
Let’s get to it…
Downs…
6. Women Deliver Sloppy Performance
Miscommunications, missed spots and sloppy exchanges were the order of the day during the women’s tag match pitting the Judgment Day vs. Lola Vice and Sol Ruca Monday night.
All 4 women kept the match moving along, but there were far too many moments where the wrestlers ran into each other awkwardly or didn’t quite connect properly. For example, Ruca went for a Sol Snatcher on Raquel Rodriguez, but Roxanne Perez was out of position to block it, so Sol had to stand on the middle turnbuckle bent over for what seemed like an eternity until Roxanne could run over.
Then, Raquel hoisted Sol up for a Tejana Bomb, and Ruca seemingly was meant to counter and headscissor her down, but instead she just rolled to the floor and pulled her arm, with Rodriguez tumbling to the floor.
Judgment Day picked up the win in the melee when Vice accidentally waffled Ruca with an MIA backfist, allowing Perez to pin Lola.
As sloppy as this was, at the very least, the action moved quickly and the match didn’t overstay its welcome. It is worth noting, however, that newcomer Vice already feels like part of the furniture rather than someone who is new and shiny. That’s never a good sign, especially when she debuted less than a month ago.
5. So Much For Dragon’s Momentum
Last week, Dragon Lee pulled off what could be a momentum-shifting victory against Big Cass, but it came with a caveat: If WWE immediately treated it like a fluke or went the 50/50 route, it would taint and even nullify a lot of the good vibes from last week.
Cut to Monday’s episode, and there were Dragon and Rey Mysterio losing to the Judgment Day due to Cass’ interference, and then the luchadores got flattened by the 7-footer. Cass threw a temper-tantrum last week in defeat, but he was back at it Monday, being a bully and beating up multiple other wrestlers.
The match itself was fine for the most part, though the more Rey and Dominik Mysterio interact in the ring the less special it feels, which is a shame. At least Dragon didn’t get pinned.
There’s a good chance this leads to Lee getting another win over Cass, but he already has one. What will winning a prolonged feud against a guy who’s 1-2 since returning to WWE do for Dragon that last week’s win already hasn’t done?
Being proven wrong in these situations is always welcome, but WWE’s track record on these kinds of feuds is not great, so don’t hold your breath.
4. 16 Minutes For THAT Finish?
Becky Lynch vs. Liv Morgan was never going to get a satisfying finish. There was no way WWE would book one of them to defeat the other, even with a truckload of interference. The only open question was how long the main event would last before the blindingly obvious no contest would occur.
The answer: 16 bloody minutes, 5 minutes longer than anything else on the card.
The action itself was fine, and fans came alive for the submission exchanges and the interference spots, but the disqualification itself was disappointing. Stephanie Vaquer ate some friendly fire from Lynch and another strike from Morgan, only to boil over and attack both women to nullify the match. She then grabbed the mic and said she wanted both women on Saturday before laying them both out.
Everyone knew WWE was going to have to script either a double-countout or a double-disqualification to reach the obvious Triple Threat. This dragged on about 5 minutes too long for that finish, and it didn’t really feel earned. Lynch and Vaquer didn’t really have the requisite tension heading into Monday, so one errant shot triggering the 'Dark Angel’s' rage felt a bit much.
This has the potential to be an excellent match on Saturday, and considering the fans were into it this gets a mild “down,” but the entire situation could have been booked more creatively, especially considering it was the main event.
3. Lightweight Fare
A couple of the matches Monday night are going to get passing grades because they were relatively short and inoffensive, but that does not absolve Raw – and the matches themselves – of feeling awfully lightweight.
Money In The Bank is a 5-match card with all 3 non-ladder matches emanating from the Raw roster, and yet everything before the main event felt fairly inconsequential. The World Heavyweight Championship go-home angle fizzled, the grudge match between Oba Femi and Bronson Reed was merely adequate, and the tag matches involving the Raw MITB participants were ultimately meaningless.
Even the main event was pointless, logging 16 minutes to end in a double-disqualification when Stephanie Vaquer attacked both women and demanded a Triple Threat.
No-one cut a single promo about how winning MITB would be a life-changing experience or taunted the World Champions with the prospect of cashing in the briefcase on them, neutering the gimmick despite the briefcases hanging above the ring all night.
If it wasn’t for the video packages and bumpers, you wouldn’t have known there was one of the “Big 5” PLEs taking place this weekend. That’s piss-poor building toward a major show.
2. Who’s The Babyface?
During this entire build for the World Heavyweight Championship match, LA Knight has been forced to carry to load himself, railing against Roman Reigns and relying on 3 years of history between him, Roman and the Bloodline.
Monday, during their only face-to-face encounter since the match became official, Reigns soaked in the “OTC” chants and recounted how he went into Mexico – “hostile territory” – last month and defeated Penta, only for Knight to “take the b*tch route” and attack him. He prattled for a couple more minutes before Knight stopped Roman from leaving to call him a manufactured, corporate puppet with a rocket shoved up his rear end.
After promising to make Roman spit out his radioactive, glowing teeth, Knight was finished and left - and that was it for this feud.
What a huge disappointment. There was actual potential in this rivalry, with LA reaching back into their history and Reigns recently finally channeling his heel side. Fast-forward a bit and Roman was claiming victimhood, conveniently enough while his family is being targeted by another heel faction. Then, you have Knight, still repeating the same years-old gripes with no new examples of Roman reverting to the “old ways.”
It just doesn’t work, and with Reigns being a part-timer, it really doesn’t work. But hey, the fans get to put their 1s up to the sky and chant “OTC,” so it must be fine, right?
1. Taking 946 Seriously?
Just in case anyone needs a refresher, running a person over with a car is a crime: Attempted vehicular homicide, to be exact.
But in the wrestling world, it’s nothing serious. No need to get cops involved, just book a 6-man elimination tag match with a guy who was recently kidnapped returning to fill out one team, and all is fine. Because what starts with lead pipes, kidnapping and vehicular assault ends in the ring.
That’s not the worst part about these "Gang Wars" between The Bloodline and 946 – it’s how unbothered Roman Reigns was by all of it. He brushed them off by asking why he kept hearing about them, then casually asked Jimmy and Jey Uso if Jacob Fatu was okay – meaning he waited a full week to check in on his cousin who got run over – then berated the twins for taking orders from Jacob when they were the captains.
Roman stormed off to “fix” this problem, with the solution being the aforementioned 6-man elimination tag next week. But lest we think that Reigns is going to lead by example, he scoffed at the notion that he would dirty his hands by getting involved in this comically bad feud – that’s Solo Sikoa’s job.
Oh, and 946 sent in another video promo. Everyone is stupid. They’re going to light it up and pick them off, one by one. No-one is safe.
This is rapidly approaching so-bad-it’s-hilarious status, where you pretend it’s intentionally bad to make everyone groan and laugh simultaneously. It certainly can’t be evaluated as a serious gang war or treated as a legit main event feud. Roman did the bare minimum to get involved, and then seemingly bowed out quickly. That’s all anyone needs to know about this storyline.
Ups…
2. Fenix, Page Keep It Light
Rey Fenix and Ethan Page were always going to have a decent-to-solid match on Raw. The only outstanding question was whether fans would get invested and make noise.
Thankfully, they came up enough to make the match work. Page started this feud by mocking Rey and calling out luchadores in general, so Fenix responded by making 'All Ego' run the ropes repeatedly, blowing the Canadian superstar up.
Fenix kept Page off-balance with his usual flurry, but Ethan grabbed Rey by the mask and drove him into the turnbuckle, then blocked a handspring stunner with a side suplex. Fenix came back with the stunner, a double-underhook facebuster and a Sweet Chin Music (complete with tuning up the band). Page utilized his size and power, catching a springboard attempt and hitting a powerslam.
The finish saw Page escape a Mexican Muscle Buster, only for Fenix to hook a small package for the win, silencing 'All Ego', at least for one night.
1. Predictable, But Good Enough
If you listened to the WhatCulture Raw preview podcast, you know that the prediction for the tag match involving The Vision vs. Je’Von Evans and Penta called for the babyfaces to pick up the win, only for the heels to gang up on them, 3-on-2 when Bronson Reed joined them, only for Oba Femi to make the save.
Just because this was insanely predictable doesn’t mean that it wasn’t entertaining and effective. The match itself was kept to less than 9 minutes, with Evans and Penta keeping the action moving. It was almost immediately forgettable, save for the finish, which saw Logan Paul try to slip Austin Theory the brass knuckles, only to overshoot and Je’Von to grab and use them to pick up the win.
Cute enough, with Evans winking as he covered Theory. Maybe he’s happy he’s escaped the Big Cass vortex.
Cue Reed, who flattened Penta with a Tsunami before Oba raced down to take out everybody with running European uppercuts. He then rattled off a few pretty good lines, noting that while everyone else is climbing ladders this weekend, Bronson has a mountain to scale. He’ll be punished accordingly for missing 7 months. The Vision can have his spirit, Paul Heyman can have his mind, but Reed’s a** belongs to Femi.
This was a stronger closing argument, and seeing Oba fire up 5 days before Money In The Bank did the trick for wanting to see him hoist Bronson up and drop him on Saturday.