So I watched tonight's RAW in hopes of seeing how desperate WWE was going to get and, while it had direction, the results were quite messy. It was still better than last week's RAW, however, this show felt like a month's worth of stories crammed into 3 hours. Here's hoping that WWE would actually follow through with this.
Let's start with the good. A brand new stable emerged in the form of League of Nations. Sheamus, Rusev, and Barrett - already known as the European Ultras - welcomed Alberto Del Rio to their fold. This probably meant that they quickly dropped the MexAmerica (and Zeb Colter?) storyline. Sheamus, who was a boring heel met with groans, showed so much personality and cockiness. It was actually nice to see the rest of his guys get the spotlight too.
We also got A New Day filled RAW, appearing in nearly every hour, doing commentary, and doing an awesome WWEShop Cyber Monday ad. These guys are having so much fun that you forget they're suppose to be heels.
And we saw development with the Divas! Charlotte and Becky had a match where Charlotte faked a leg injury while Daddy Ric Flair distracted Becky long enough to lose via rollup. Becky was upset while Charlotte maintained that she was teaching her that they're not on NXT and they're in the big leagues... but you're still my girl! Charlotte is starting to turn heel, Paige is the fan favorite tweener, and Becky is the pure-heart babyface.
The biggest surprise of the night was seeing Tommy Dreamer, an ECW original, coming over to the Dudley Boyz as they issued their challenge to the Wyatt Family. It's not known if Dreamer is going to be with WWE full-time. It's a great way to keep the Dudleys active since they've sadly gotten stale after losing numerous times to The New Day.
The bad was everything else about the show. This was clearly The Roman Reigns Show, who stole the opening segment by Superman Punching Sheamus and taking his belt, all with a big fucking smile on his face. Stealing titles! That sounds so rebellious and fun for Reigns to do! You know who else was doing that? DEAN FUCKING AMBROSE. Reigns' little act pissed off HHH and Stephanie, who informed Reigns that Sheamus is going to defend his title tonight and that he has 5 minutes and 15 seconds (the length of his reign as a champion) to beat him. And just so that we don't forget how much the odds are stacked against Reigns, HHH informed Ambrose that if Reigns loses to Sheamus, he would lose his IC title shot with Owens, which made him pretty angry. Stephanie also informed The Usos that they'll lose their Tag Team title shot with New Day if Reigns loses as well. It's a thinly veiled attempt of getting the fan support from Ambrose and The Usos to root for Reigns.
Of course, Reigns wins via DQ and Sheamus remains the champ, which led to the giant clusterfuck of a main event that saw Reigns, Ambrose and The Usos vs League of Nations AND The New Day. Ambrose ended up being the hot tag (which was said to wake up the audience) and he took out all the heels until he got overwhelmed. Ambrose got pinned by Sheamus and was beaten down by all the heels until Reigns came in to help him. RAW ended with the heels standing strong over a defeated Reigns. Commentary made it a point to focus on Reigns being overwhelmed and not catching a break.
Overall, this was an acceptable RAW. RollingStone, Wrestling Observer, ProWrestling, and AV Club seems to think otherwise. As an Ambrose fan, I was not happy on how he was utilized as a prop for Reigns to get over. Although it was nice of HHH to acknowledge Ambrose and Owens IC title match for TLC, it was even weirder to not see Owens at all last night, despite being advertised. There was a rumor that Owens fell sick and had to fly back home, which means he won't be on Smackdown this week.
I saw this little gem on instagram. Ambrose might've done this move during the commercial break. I love how you can hear the audience laughing after the loud thud. He's a such a goddamn lovable babyface.
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