FanSided’s brand-new column, WWE Week in Review, will take a look back at the highlights of Monday Night RAW, SmackDown Live, 205 Live and NXT.
By the time you finish reading this, The Undertaker should be just about done getting to the ring, am I right? Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch (not by much) but I’ll get to that once I get into what happened on RAW this week. And as I’m hoping you put together by the introductory sentence in bold there at the top, that’s what I’m here to do in this brand-new column that we’re rolling out for 2017, the WWE Week in Review. Yes, I’m aware that I’m a week late in getting this first one out but just cut me a little slack, will ya? But in all seriousness, the wrestling team we have assembled here is excited to bring new things and new ideas to the WWE page here at FanSided.
As for this particular column, we’ll be breaking down the highlights and sometimes lowlights of Monday Night RAW, SmackDown Live, 205 Live and NXT. And if there’s a pay-per-view, we’ll certainly get into a little bit of that as well. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be touching on every single segment of every single show but we want to hit the highlights. I mean, I’m sure that you’d love a 750-word opinion of the relationship between Carmella and James Ellsworth (which actually is kinda funny) but we’re going to mainly focus on the big fish here. Why was this promo important? Was this or that match any good? Is it building towards something else?
Or maybe not. Perhaps I’ll just end up ranting about something for a little while and maybe you’ll agree with me and maybe you won’t. What’s just as important as what we have to say is what you have to say. We want you to get involved in the comments section and get a conversation going.
So let’s dive into some of what we saw this week.
WWE Monday Night RAW
So should we go ahead and assume that Titus O’Neil will take on Big E next week? Oh, my bad. I said in the intro that I’d be talking about the highlights of Monday Night RAW and this storyline with Titus and The New Day is just awful. Look, I know it’s sometimes a little hard to build programs leading to the Royal Rumble but this is just really bad and wasting the talents of everyone involved. So let’s move on.
Did you ever think in a million years that you’d see a day where someone like Rusev would be better on the microphone than Shawn Michaels? Because that’s exactly what happened in their segment. It’s always nice to see HBK back in WWE but the shameless plug for his new movie was going nowhere and Rusev and Lana saved the day. Oh, Jinder Mahal was there too. And I think we all knew where things were going from there as Enzo and Cass came out, did their thing (the movie references were actually pretty funny) and while the match between Big Cass and Jinder was a glorified squash, we did get some Sweet Chin Music out of it.
Okay, let’s get into some things that actually had some substance.
Much like Braun Strowman on the men’s side, Nia Jax looks to be getting a big push as the monster of the women’s division. They’ve been built up very similarly and I’m digging it. The backstage segment with Nia shoving Charlotte into a wall after they beat down Sasha and Bayley was fantastic and I really like where they’re going with this. The obvious tag match was made and while it wasn’t the greatest in the world, it certainly served its purpose and Nia getting a big pin over the number one contender only made her look stronger. Before I move on, I have to mention how awesome Stephanie McMahon is. I know there’s a lot of people out there that don’t like how much she’s on TV but I’ve never been able to get enough. Her telling Sasha that there’s really only one boss was gold. Sorry, just had to get that in there.
While we’re on Stephanie McMahon, we might as well move into the “performance review” of Mick Foley storyline, which was a little ridiculous but slightly entertaining as the night went on, with the payoff being one of the biggest stories of the week — the return of The Undertaker.
Seriously, is there one person out there in the WWE Universe that actually thought he wouldn’t show up? Anyone? Bueller? But after the 48-minute walk to the ring (seriously, these are getting out of control), The Phenom announced that he will be entering the Royal Rumble. Okay, just one more joke about his entrance and then I’ll be done. When that gong hits in San Antonio, isn’t it possible that the person who comes in after him will actually get to the ring before him? But I suppose if he’s number 30 that won’t matter.
Seriously though, I think this is a great move. For the last few years, he just shows up, makes his match for WrestleMania and that’s that. But this creates so many different possibilities. They’ve already teased Strowman a little bit with him looking at the monitor in the back as ‘Taker was making his announcement and I could easily see a moment where it’s just those two standing in the middle of the ring together.
And speaking of Strowman, he’s really getting thrown into that main event picture with full force. He demanded either Roman Reigns or Goldberg to start, got into it with Seth Rollins in the back and then interrupted the title match that opened the show. Like it or not, Strowman is at the top level now and I don’t think he’s going anywhere.
That takes us to the actual 2-on-1 handicap match for the United States Championship that closed the show that saw Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho battle Roman Reigns. I thought it would have been very interesting to see Kevin Owens actually steal the win in this one but I like how this whole thing went down. Reigns got in some offense but for the most part we saw Owens and Jericho take it to the champ and by the time things were said and done, Chris Jericho had won the only major title that he’s never held. With two weeks to go before the Royal Rumble, it will be interesting to see if Reigns exercises his rematch clause before his match for the WWE Universal Championship against Owens. There’s a few different booking options for these guys moving forward so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Overall, Monday Night RAW wasn’t bad this week. The cruiserweights got some decent time in and I do like where this rivalry between Sheamus & Cesaro and Anderson & Gallows is going as well. We’ve got a couple more shows before the Royal Rumble so we’ll see where a few of these storylines go. And next week we’ll see the return of Brock Lesnar, so that could be interesting.