Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Paige finally returned to Raw with backup and a Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! gimmick. If you want to watch last week’s Raw twice, you can also watch Smackdown.
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Here’s the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for November 27, 2017.
Best: We’re A 3-Man Band
Or, THE DRIFTOURAGE.
So, this week’s episode opens with Roman Reigns getting a “you deserve it” chant for winning the Intercontinental Championship, which is nice and makes him seem gracious even if “you deserve it” has become “woo” and you’re yelling it no matter how bad the chop was. He’s interrupted by The Miz’s friends, who announce that they’re now (temporarily?) the Jinder and Drew to Elias’ Heath Slater. That sets up Roman defending the IC title against Elias later in the night, as the best possible thing you can do with Roman as a secondary champion is have him wrestle and defend the title all the time, but not make any broad declarations about an “open challenge.”
With The Miz taking time off to film The Marine 6: Personal Space, I was worried that injured Latter Day Saint Curtis Axel and sensitive biker thug Bo Dallas would be useless and fade back into obscurity. I (1) did not expect them to end up friends with Elias, (2) nor did I expect Raw to involve two of my favorite dorky wrestlers playing DUELING PRETEND BLUES HARMONICAS.
As I said on Twitter during the show, I’m glad I lived long enough to see Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel playing dueling blues harmonica on Raw. I just wish they’d done it in front of the Houston crowd that loved the shit out of the Miztourage, and not this central Tennessee crowd I assume is still experiencing PTSD from their old local fed.
If you’d like the clearest example of how well this all worked, check out a WWE crowd chanting “this is awesome” for a Roman Reigns vs. Elias match.
Point the first, this is exactly what they should be doing with Roman. No matter what you’ve let the Internet decide for you, Roman is an outstanding pro wrestler inside the ropes, at least in the WWE definition of “pro wrestling.” He’s impactful, expressive, has great timing and believable offense. He sells more than you realize, too, at least when he’s not stuck in a 25 minute main event that should be going 15 tops. Triple H, I’m looking in your direction. But yeah, Roman is (and honestly has always been) dope in the ring, so if you just keep the seemingly necessary “main character” recap promos short and let him spend most of his time having good-to-great matches in the middle of shows that allow characters that aren’t on his level RISE to it, you’re solving nearly every Roman Reigns problem. *chef kiss*
Point the second, look at the big talent on Elias! In the continuing miracle of a guy who was God-awful for most of his time in NXT being a completely functional, entertaining and engaging character on a bigger stage, Elias busted out some prime offense in this — his elbow off the ropes was beautiful, as was his electric chair into a powerbomb — and legitimately looked like he could win. It was a lot like that Cena/Neville match from his U.S. title run, where yeah, you knew the other guy wasn’t going to win, but even in a loss they really show something and come out looking better for it. I think this match got Elias over in a way he hasn’t been able to be yet, and that rules.
All in on the Roman Reigns Intercontinental Championship run. Even if Samoa Joe ends it almost immediately. Honestly, I’m even more in if that happens.
Best: Titus Throws Hands
I’ve read some recaps of this match that said Titus O’Neil got in too much offense for a two-minute squash, and while that’s totally fair given how Titus has been booked for his entire career, I disagree. I think this is how a squash match should go if you’ve decided your jobber is an extremely muscular, 6-foot-6, 270 pound former football player. That guy SHOULD be landing some big strikes before you put him down.
Watch the Fan Nation version of the match and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Titus is in the ring throwing Jinder Mahal title reign-earning elbow strikes against a workrate darling and big open-hand slaps to the gut that make the crowd go, “oh!” That’s great. He still tapped out and Joe still rolled, but shit, a guy like Titus needs to spend a weekend with a Miracle Violence Connection VHS and show up to next week’s Raw throwing backdrop drivers.
Also, shout-out to Apollo Crews, a wrestler I’m afraid we’re never going to like, for “making the save” for Titus and getting choked out in like five seconds.
Best: Speaking Of Getting Choked Out In Like Five Seconds, Here’s The Entire Asuka Vs. Dana Brooke Match In A Single GIF
Next week on the Aces and Ehs of Impact: “We know who that is, JB! ASHLEY MAE has arrived in whatever we’re calling our wrestling promotion now!”
Worst/Best: #GiveDivasAChance
While none of it was bad — I like Paige’s group, even if the “Absolution” name feels like they picked something from a drop down menu in a video game with limited options, and the Asuka squash was super fun — it’s important to note that there were two women’s matches on this three-hour show and both matches COMBINED lasted five seconds. All five of those were Dana Brooke getting flipped for real in a cross-armbreaker, because the advertised six-woman tag never happened.
The good news is that hey, five seconds of things happening and stories moving forward is better than 15 minutes of boring nothing, but still, I think we could’ve snuck some in-ring stuff onto the show SOMEWHERE. Absolution (sorry, Tony Nese) attacking Bayley and Mickie James backstage showed they’ve got an edge, and Alexa Bliss bailing on commentary to avoid a beatdown was pretty funny. I reserve the right to dislike all of this is they announce Ruby Riot, Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan vs. Naomi, Becky Lynch and Natalya for Tuesday, the match never happens because Ruby’s Riot Squad beats up Becky and Nattie backstage, and Charlotte leaves commentary to avoid a beatdown.
Me Reading Your Tweets
Worst, But Then Best: If It Ain’t Broke, Fix It
Remember back before Bray faded away and classified himself as obsolete — obsolete — when we wanted to see Broken Matt Hardy vs. evil teleporting swampbilly cultist Bray Wyatt? It looks like we’re finally getting that, as Jeff is either (1) not coming back any time soon and Matt needs something to do, or (2) one or more persons has fallen into the Lake of Reincarnation and we’re getting our full-on WWE Broken Universe.
A universe which I assume includes Bray Wyatt nervously saying, “Sister Abigail? Heh, what’s that, never heard of it,” before a bunch of drones and children attack him.
In a related note, NO BRAY WYATT PROMOS EVER.
Best: Seth Rollins Has Pinned One Half Of The Tag Team Champions!
So just to say it, I’m infuriated with how impossibly lazy this trope has become. Last week, Dean Ambrose pinned one half of the Tag Team Champions to set up another title shot between the only two teams that ever wrestle for the Tag Team Championship. This week, Seth Rollins pins the other half of the champions to do the same thing. On Smackdown, Shelton Benjamin pinned one half of their Tag Team Champions to set up a title shot. You think on Tuesday we’ll see Chad Gable pinning Jimmy Uso?
Okay, having said that, there’s one difficult truth to every Best and Worst of Anything column: no matter how mad something makes me, how frustrated I become or how little sense it makes, if the pro wrestling part is really good, I’m okay with it. At the end of the day I’m not an out-of-touch elitist or a Social Justice Anything, I just want the shows to be good. If they’re good in a way I don’t like, shit, at least they’re good. That was this week’s opening match. Yeah, Cesaro took another damn pinfall and yeah, The Challenger Has Pinned The Champion™, but it was 20 minutes of two great wrestlers wrestling, and that’s good. They even kept the psychology sound with Cesaro working Rollins’ back.
All in all, very good stuff. I wish there was a more engaging way to get to the 20 minutes of wrestling and that the stuff before and after it could matter as much, but maybe we’re getting there. The post-match interview with the Queen of Negativity Charly Caruso I could take or leave, as her question about whether or not the Shield is breaking up because they sometimes have matches that aren’t six man tags is dumb, but Rollins mentioning Ambrose’s honeymoon and my tangential thought of Ambrose inviting Renee to all the Shield hangouts and her Yoko Ono’ing them is pretty fantastic. I mean, Rollins used to date a Nazi and he didn’t let HER ruin the group.
Best/Worst: Save The Cruiserweights
Because the Cruiserweight Division is the Smackdown Women’s Division with penises, the only way a title shot can be earned is via:
- a wrestler showing up and saying NOW *I* GET A TITLE SHOT and everyone just going along with it, or
- a battle royal and/or a small tournament to name a new number one contender
So instead of writing a character-based story where someone might earn a title shot in a unique or interesting way, Kurt Angle’s like, “I’m putting everyone in the division into two fatal four-ways, two heels and two faces in each, with the winners having a match to see who’ll face Enzo.” That’s something, so I can’t talk too much shit about it, but could we at least establish some motivations and find out what these characters think about what’s going on beyond “I love to have fun” or “I’m on the bad guy team?” Enzo and Drew Gulak are the only characters whose personalities make it onto Raw.
On the positive tip, the match got about 13 minutes and felt like the first real “cruiserweight” match we’ve had on Raw in a while. Everyone got to look good, they got enough time to actually express themselves in the ring, and Rich Swann got the win. I assume next week Gulak will win to set up Swann having to dethrone Enzo’s top lackey before challenging for the Championship, or they’ll give it to Ced and maybe let them tear it up for 15 minutes at the top of the next show. Really anything works for me if we’re moving forward, allowing some of these objectively SUPER TALENTED HUMAN BEINGS to use some of their talent in front of people, and making the secondary championships something wrestlers who don’t have one want.
Worst: The Two-Part Kane Event
I was hoping the random Kane return and push of 2017 was just to compensate for some injuries before TLC. Then I was hoping it was part of the non-canon month of Survivor Series booking. Now I have no idea what the hell it is.
The proposed main event is Kane vs. Jason Jordan, with Jordan claiming his knee is fine, but also that he’s been working injured, so he can play the “noble babyface” and “secretly cowardly heel” thing on a fine line. I like that. He’s genuinely unlikable right now, and I have to assume they’ve figured that out by now and are doing it on purpose. So Kane wrestles Jordan for like, a minute-45 until Jordan “re-injures” his knee and loses by count-out.
With Jordan incapacitated and the main event in peril, Finn Bálor shows up to get his ass kicked by Kane again. I’d type a bunch of dense paragraphs complaining about this if I had any idea what was going on, beyond, “if we build up Kane by putting him over everyone we can give Braun Strowman a rub that it barely seems like he needs.” Is anybody in the world like, “I’m holding off on deciding whether or not I like Braun Strowman until I see how he handles this Kane situation?”
Kane murks Finn again, and Strowman makes the save. Braun no-sells a chair, then spends like 15 minutes beating the shit out of Kane. While this is a great idea on paper, the execution was a little off … partially because I don’t think anyone takes the threat of Kane seriously enough to get excited about it, but mostly because they forced an overrun they didn’t need and we had to watch Kane stagger around like a stooge for most of it. Kane gets his throat crushed as revenge for what he did to Strowman, boom, end of show. Don’t have him get his throat crushed, then follow him as he recovers, staggers around at ringside, wanders out through the crowd and disappears to the back, all while Braun stands in the ring watching and doing nothing. It was like they missed their cue to send it to Jeeepers Threepers.
There isn’t another Raw pay-per-view until the Royal Rumble, so let’s hope the Strowman vs. Kane beef gets settled on weekly TV before WrestleMania season comes around, unless this is to set up an official retirement for Kane. I just … don’t want to see Kane, that’s normal, isn’t it? Worst case, have Kane and Braun enter the Rumble at #1 and 2, spend all day talking about how good Kane is at Royal Rumbles, and have Braun chokeslam him out like so much James Ellsworth like 15 seconds in.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
Clay Quartermain
I hope that new Table for Three episode ends with Ric skipping out and leaving Steamboat and Sting with the check.
The Real Birdman
That was a nice visual representation of WWE’s food chain:
Big pushed Monster > WWE Veteran > Indie superworker > Black guy
Ja Gi Kyung-Moon
I actually would have been OK if the show ended with, like, 11 dudes just walking out and saving each other from Kane.
pdragon619
Strowman should come down super slow and do poses too just to teach Finn a lesson
Thrillhouse
Fast forward to next week where Asuka comes out wearing Mandy Rose’s face as her mask.
AJ Dusman
The big dog looked so pathetic there, I almost expected a Sarah McLachlan song to start playing over it.
Brute Farce
Bray was right about the crowd being dead.
6forSorrow
Wait, they sell Money int he Bank replica briefcases? I’m going to buy one and walk around my neighborhood, putting the fear of god into anyone with a replica WWE belt.
Harry Longabaugh
Seth is going to pull a reverse Ric Flair: close down the bar and THEN win a championship.
Ryse
Roman: This is my midcard now. *drops mic*
That’s it for this week. A huge improvement this week for me, even though that doesn’t see to be the consensus. Maybe my Enjoy The Wrestling radar is broken. Anyway, let’s hope Smackdown becomes its own show again this week, and that we can all move on with Survivor Series in our rear-view.
If you’re able to help us out, drop a comment to let us know what you thought of the show and share the column on your social media gimmicks. It helps. Join us next week for Raw live (for us) in Los Angeles, with a Tag Team Championship match and, I’m assuming, Aliyah getting called up from NXT with Bianca Belair and Lacey Evans.
And make sure to listen to our new McMahonsplaining podcast with Carmella.
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