4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (18 Nov - Results & Review)

1. WarGames By Contrivance

WWE Raw Iyo Sky Bianca Belair Jade Cargill Naomi Rhea Ripley Liv Morgan Raquel Rodriguez Nia Jax Tiffany Stratton
WWE

In recent weeks, several women on Raw and SmackDown have been crossing over between brands for unclear reasons, interfering in each other’s matches, attacking one another backstage, and becoming increasingly hostile. It was all bound to boil over sometime soon…

And that “sometime” apparently means Survivor Series in WarGames. Just two weeks after Liv Morgan cheated to defeat Nia Jax and become the first Crown Jewel Champion, there were Liv and Nia and their seconds in the ring playing nice on Raw. They had a chance to have Jax reference the PLE and Raquel Rodriguez’s interference, but they just blew right past it.

This brought out the babyfaces in Jade Cargill, Bianca Belair, Naomi, and their new partner Iyo Sky to face off. Liv pointed out that they were outnumbered and that there wasn’t anyone in the back dumb enough to stand with them. Before anyone could blurt out “Where’s Kairi Sane or Dakota Kai?” Rhea Ripley made her return, screamed “WarGames!” and headbutted Morgan to touch off a 10-woman brawl.

And that is that.

What an absolute dogsh*t build to what is supposed to be a major blowoff-style match. This smacks of Vince McMahon at his worst, booking Hell in a Cell matches because there just happens to be a PLE called Hell in a Cell happening that month. Or a TLC match for Tables, Ladders & Chairs.

Ripley’s return is always welcome, but coming back for this horribly constructed, chaotic (and not in a good way) feud is a waste. It makes two-thirds of Damage CTRL looks impotent, devaluing the group as a whole, it ignores what should be bad blood between Liv and Nia, and denigrates the significance of WarGames by booking a feud that just came together in the past two weeks in the double cage. Absolutely inexcusable.

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Contributor

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 fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.