This week’s Monday Night Raw featured a tag team gauntlet match, two more King of the Ring tournament clashes and The Boss doing Boss things.
Let’s get down to the tag team-sized elephant in the room, shall we? Last week on Monday Night Raw, the team of unlikely allies, Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman, defeated The O.C. to become the new Raw Tag Team Champions. This week on Raw, we saw “Tag Team Turmoil,” a/k/a an eight-team tag gauntlet match to determine Rollins’ and Strowman’s opponents for the titles at Clash of Champions.
What could — and should — have been an exhibition of Raw‘s best tag teams in order to better establish what has been a long-neglected part of WWE’s talent pool instead became service to yet another thrown-together team of single’s stars.
The match started with The Viking Raiders facing The B-Team, and the results were as expected, with Viking Raiders picking up an easy win. It seemed, perhaps, that the former War Raiders in NXT would finally get more than just a few squash matches; maybe now they’d enter the tag title picture, as they rightfully should.
Instead, they, and their opponents The O.C. were both disqualified in the gauntlet’s second match for fighting too much. And while this could set up a featured program between these two worthy teams, the decision to double-disqualify them in this match seemed not just lazy but also insulting.
That brought out two more teams to go to battle, and this is where the problems really revealed themselves. The first team was Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler, two heels not really up to much beyond Ziggler’s incessant “it should have been me!” dramatic monologues and being beaten up by legends. They faced Lucha House Party, an actually-established team; no matter, Ziggler pinned Lince Dorado and Roode/Ziggler were onto The Revival, another actually-established team that should be able to take down two randomly-affiliated singles wrestlers.
But no; The Revival are the second team felled by Roode and Ziggler, with only Heavy Machinery standing in their way for a shot at Strowman and Rollins’ titles. It seemed absurd to think that the two could be set to beat a third team, but at the same time having Heavy Machinery win would set up a face vs. face tag match at Clash of Champions, not something WWE is wont to do. As such, Ziggler hit a superkick on Otis, a Zig Zag on Tucker and Roode finished Tucker off via Glorious DDT. Ziggler and Roode are now the No. 1 contenders for the Raw Tag Team Championships. What?
Essentially, WWE found a way on Monday night to not just feature tag team wrestling for a large chunk of its three-hour show, but also to completely insult it at the same time. Having a non-tag team hold the titles while being challenged by another non-tag team while numerous established and talented teams are being scripted as barely relevant in their service is quite the statement to make. And it’s not a positive one.
Boss time
Raw opened with Sasha Banks cutting a promo to answer for her extended, post-WrestleMania absence and her return, which saw her attack Natalya, reveal blue hair and then beat Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch with a chair. Banks confirms the rumors that she threw a tantrum at WrestleMania after being forced to drop the Women’s Tag Team Championship to the IIconics and left — a clever way for her and WWE to address said rumors without revealing if they were indeed true (this was, of course a scripted promo) and to make sure that we’ll never know the exact truth.
However, Banks also used that explanation to make irrelevant the women’s tag titles — something they don’t need, even in their revitalized state around the waists of Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss. The best, though, was that Banks knew that attacking Lynch would be the best way to get back in the spotlight (not untrue), and thus making her The Boss, yet again.
The subsequent attack by Natalya, and Banks’ match with Natalya later in the night (which featured an effective variation of Banks’ Banks Statement submission) were both fine and suited the story. But Lynch’s absence on the night — she’s celebrating her engagement to Seth Rollins, who also wasn’t live at Raw on Monday — means that Banks will get payback for her words and actions. It also means Banks gets a title match at Clash of Champions. Bosses know how to get what they want.
Kings of Rings
The King of the Ring tournament continued this week, with Ricochet facing Drew McIntyre and The Miz taking on Baron Corbin. Both matches got considerable time, as contrasted to last week’s bouts, in which one would be long, and good and one would be very short and unsatisfying.
What was unsatisfying this week is the continued nuking of McIntyre’s career momentum. While there’s nothing wrong with Ricochet picking up a win — the tourney needs heels and faces, after all — it’s just a continued bummer that someone with McIntyre’s look and persona struggles to win matches. He’s a literal beast of a man and seems tailor-made for wearing championship gold or at the very least, the crown and scepter of the King of the Ring. Maybe someday, but not right now it seems.
The Miz-Corbin match wasn’t super brief and it wasn’t all that bad, either, but given McIntyre’s earlier loss, it was clear that the heel would come out on top, and Corbin does via End of Days. Post-match, Corbin takes the throne, puts on the crown and wields the scepter, virtually guaranteeing that he won’t be the tournament’s winner. You don’t touch the Lombardi Trophy ahead of the Super Bowl, you know? It’s a jinx.
Braun Strowman, workhorse
Braun Strowman is one half of the Raw Tag Team Champions with Seth Rollins, and the two will defend those titles at Clash of Champions against Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode. But he also will be facing Rollins for Rollins’ Universal Championship, a promise Rollins made him after Strowman has served to help him out in his feud with AJ Styles and The O.C.
But Strowman wants a third title match at Clash of Champions, a defense of the WWE United States Championship. And thus, on Raw, Strowman faced Styles for Styles’ U.S. title to, presumably, also put that on the line against Rollins.
Rollins isn’t at Raw this week, and though The O.C. were supposed to not be at ringside in Styles’ aid, they come out and interfere anyway. The referee gets knocked out, which allows Strowman to lay out Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows with a chair before actually taking out Styles via professional wrestling.
The referee, though, heard the chair shots (thus not knowing that they were on The O.C. and not Styles), sees a chair in Strowman’s hand and Styles down on the canvas. He puts one and one and one together and disqualifies Strowman, to the Monster Among Men’s displeasure. Beatings all around are how Raw ends this week.
Strowman seems set to get that third Clash of Champions match he wants so badly, but instead of champion it will be as challenger. Perhaps in a steel cage, the better to keep Gallows and Anderson away?
Cesaro is going to Wales
Cesaro took a surprising loss to Cedric Alexander (or maybe not surprising by WWE’s logic, as Alexander won his King of the Ring match the week previous while Cesaro did not). But the more interesting development is that he revealed he’s headed to Cardiff, Wales for NXT UK’s TakeOver: Cardiff, which takes place on Saturday.
With no one particularly formidable enough in NXT UK to prove a credible threat to its champion, WALTER, perhaps those two will come face-to-face and set up what could be the GOAT of hoss battles. Oh, pretty please, WWE?
Did you enjoy this week’s Monday Night Raw? Should WWE’s established tag teams feel insulted? Let us know in the comments below.