As we were told several times during TLC last night, Vince McMahon is returning to Raw tonight to “shake things up.” Because in kayfabe, I suppose, Vince hasn’t had anything to do with Raw’s recent problems, all of which were Ex-General-Manager-Elect Baron Corbin’s fault. We don’t know what Vince is going to do on Raw, but there are reports about one strong reaction he had during TLC.
According to Dave Meltzer at Wrestling Observer Radio, Vince was “furious” about the Intercontinental Title Match between Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, and the poor reactions it got from the crowd. The exact focus of his fury isn’t clear, but we may be able to discern it from what happens next for Seth and Dean.
It was indeed a bit surprising how poorly that match went last night, with the crowd chanting “This is boring” and calling out for Becky Lynch, whose match was to follow in the main event. This was a match between Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, two former brothers from one of WWE’s all time hottest factions. This was a feud people were clamoring for from the moment Dean made his return in August. Whether it was the attempt to get Dean heat by bringing up Roman Reigns’ leukemia, Survivor Series killing their momentum, all that weird stuff with gas masks and vaccinations, or just the fact that a grudge match turned into 24 minutes of rest holds and wrestling lock-ups, something somewhere went terribly wrong.
None of this is likely to be directly addressed on tonight’s Raw, but we may see Seth and Dean’s trajectories shifted away from each other to avoid another match like that. There are rumors McMahon might announce another draft that will completely rearrange the Raw and Smackdown rosters, which would certainly be one way to get these guys far apart and pretend this never happened.
