7 Ups And 5 Downs For Last Night's WWE Raw (New Year's Eve)

And with that, 2018 ended with something of a whimpering bang from WWE.

The company closed out the year with a taped episode of Raw that features some pretty decent developments that if they continue to play out, could represent some positive changes in direction. However, we’ve seen this movie before, and it’s more likely that we’ll get a few weeks of new and exciting before reverting to old, stale and comfortable (for WWE).

But Raw gave us a “fresh start” – a phrase that was uttered about three dozen times throughout the episode, including a “fresh start battle royal” to name a #1 contender for the Intercontinental Championship for later that night. It also gave us a women’s tag match to close out the year, which delivered what it needed to.

We also saw the company possibly setting the table for 2019, with the aforementioned “fresh start” and a bunch of returns announced for next week, including Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman and John Cena.

But first, we have to slog through one more episode of Raw before turning the calendar over. Just in case you were out partying and your DVR ate Raw, here’s a recap of the highlights and lowlights of this week’s episode.

Let’s get to it…