The Road to the Royal Rumble continued Monday night with Raw returning to the scene of the Miracle on Bourbon Street, where the Undertakers undefeated WrestleMania Streak ended, New Orleans. Sadly, nothing grand like that happened on Monday night. But WWE managed to put together a decent enough edition of Raw that didnt offend badly and didnt damage the build toward the Rumble PPV. The highlight of Raw was the ongoing, still hot Intercontinental Championship feud between champ Dean Ambrose and challenger Kevin Owens. Ambrose would take out his frustrations on someone else, while Owens would get a slight upper hand in this week-to-week battle. Fortunately (for the announcers), the table was spared this week. WWE crowned a new champion Monday, with an unusual winner, but WWE needs to start thinking outside the box a little, because the current way of booking is a large part of why the company has been in this rut for some time. Mr. McMahon also booked Roman Reigns in yet another stacked-odds match, trying to break the world champions will and spirit (and maybe a couple bones) before the Royal Rumble. Oh, and some former UFC heavyweight champion was there too. One guess how that went down. So what overcame the odds and triumphed, and what was beat down by the opposition? Lets 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 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.
