This was definitely a throwaway episode of RAW. This was the same night as The Slammy's, WWE's self-proclaimed "most prestigious award show", where the winners are voted by mostly casual fans. Inbetween announcing the categories, nominees and winners, there are usually wrestling matches to fill in the gaps. Last night didn't do much to progress any major storylines except for Reigns getting the upperhand on Stephanie, more development with Ziggler and Owens (which was the only great wrestling match), and the main event cage match with Ambrose coming off pretty strong.
Let's start off with the bad. First was the horrible opening segment with Stephanie and Roman Reigns, which resulted in a very childish shouting match, mostly from Stephanie, as she tells Reigns to get out of her ring. Then he turns her back to her and walks away, all while smiling at the audience, making her yell at Reigns to come back. She threatens Reigns - the same guy who took out HHH and Vince McMahon - by punishing his family, putting The Usos against The New Day and Ambrose against Sheamus in a cage match.
Next was the fact that a majority of the Slammy winners were not present to accept the award. It was the presenters that had to accept it on their behalf, such as Paul Heyman for Undertaker and Brock Lesnar (who was a no-show for his homestate), Bo Dallas for Sting, and Miz for The Rock and Ronda Rousey. The votes are legit but it was still incredibly disappointing to not see any of the winners appear to at least acknowledge the award.
There were a few wrestling matches scattered throughout the event. The crowd was noticeably bored with how uneven the show was progressing. Ziggler and Owens was the first great match of the night, mostly because of how lengthy and brutal it was. This re-established how much a threat Owens is and how great Ziggler can be when he has direction. This is leading up to a newly announced Triple Threat IC Title match with Owens, Ziggler, and Ambrose for the Live Smackdown for Tuesday.
Amidst this 3-hour buttnumb-a-thon were a few bright spots, such as a very bitter Kevin Owens ranting about losing to Neville for Breakout Star of The Year, The New Day threatening to spoil the ending to Star Wars: The Force Awakens for losing to The Usos for Tag Team Of The Year (yeah, seriously), and the return of Seth Rollins for accepting the award for Superstar of The Year. I'm not going to lie; Rollins has completely won me over. He suffered a devastating injury but still managed to make a live appearance, whereas a perfectly healthy John Cena didn't bother to show up (he is advertised to return next Monday). Although The Slammys is not to be taken seriously, seeing Rollins being genuinely thankful for the award made it a big deal for him. He vowed that he will reclaim his title next year.
The main event cage match started off with Sheamus Brogue Kicking Ambrose as he was entering the ring, with Barrett, Del Rio, and Rusev roughing him up a bit before throwing him back into the cage to start the match. Within a few minutes, the crowd was loudly chanting "SHEAMUS IS BORING." Things turned around quickly when Ambrose climbed up to the top of the cage and was cornered by Rusev and Del Rio. Rather than walk around the structure, Ambrose did an elbow drop from the top of the cage and unto Sheamus, which got a huge pop from the crowd. Reigns eventually showed up to help take out the rest of the League of Nations outside the ring and throw a chair to Ambrose.
BEST SPOT OF THE NIGHT
Ambrose used the chair to take out Sheamus and proceeded to climb out the of the cage. Sheamus caught up with him at the top, and they both duke it out, even as they both climbed down on the other side of the cage. Then there's the stupid rule where the winner is the one who gets out of it, which led to Ambrose falling halfway off the cage and unto the floor, making him the winner. As soon as Sheamus touched down, Reigns speared him and happily helped up Ambrose. This was the second great match of the night but it was criminally short for a main event.
Overall, this was another bad episode of RAW made worse by The Slammys. Next week is the last RAW of the year which will hopefully start to shake things up for Royal Rumble next month.
Before I forget, Ambrose was shirtless again (thanks to Sheamus) and he suffered a nasty gash on his head afterwards. It didn't appear to be as serious as Reigns' head wound from last week. And yet WWE had to censor the video of Ambrose getting his head cleaned and stapled. This would seem like a standard video of a superstar getting treated but not with Ambrose. Here, he does a rendition of Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It" as he gets six staples to his head. This guy was in CZW, this is like nothing to him.
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