4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Monday Night Raw (17 November - Results & Review)

3. House Show Goodness

WWE Raw Sheamus John Cena Rey Mysterio Judgment Day
WWE

In some ways, what WWE delivered with John Cena’s final match on Raw Monday night was exactly what they should have been offering for the past 11 months: a feel-good, glorified house show match that sent everyone home happy.

Cena opened Raw and found himself at the mercy of the Judgment Day, triggering a rescue from Sheamus and Rey Mysterio, which naturally gave way to a six-man tag. Impromptu matches often get an automatic thumbs down, but there’s a bit of acceptance that Cena could use his clout to call for an immediate match in response to the Judgment Day transgression.

The match itself was nothing more than a greatest hits match with house show vibes. The heels landed their aerial finishers on Cena (JD McDonagh moonsault, Finn Balor Coup de Grace, Dominik Mysterio frogsplash), only for the faces to save. That led to a triple 10 Beats of the Bodhran and a triple Five-Knuckle Shuffle, capped off by one last Attitude Adjustment for the win.

The match won’t make many year-end lists, but it was a pitch-perfect, inconsequential crowd-pleaser, and that’s really all that was needed here.

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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.