Quality matches and Stone Cold Steve Austin were highlights of this week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.
Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live both hailed this week from a legendary venue in WWE lore: Madison Square Garden. As such, WWE pulled out all the stops on both nights, including featuring Stone Cold Steve Austin on Monday night and The Undertaker on Tuesday.
Raw, overall, was a good show, but its main event, a 10-man tag pitting Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman, The Viking Warriors and Cedric Alexander on one side against The O.C., Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode would have been better served swapped with the Four Horsewomen tag match that opened hour two.
The 10-man tag, while featuring numerous folks involved in high-stakes matches at Clash of Champions, ultimately meant nothing and the crowd knew it, chanting “yowie wowie!” and doing the wave through much of it. The only notable moment is that Alexander pinned AJ Styles, thus leading to the two having a match for Styles’ United States Championship on Sunday.
Austin showed up at the end of that match, to celebrate with beers with the winners in the ring. He was also at the top of the show, serving as mediator for Strowman and Rollins’ contract signing for their match for Rollins’ Universal Championship, also at Clash of Champions. That event thus led to Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows showing up, a brawl breaking out and Austin hitting Styles with a Stone Cold Stunner. Styles then had to follow that up with a one-on-one match with Alexander.
And that match was interrupted as well, by Anderson and Gallows. The Viking Raiders came out to make the save, and that, plus one backstage segment with Roode and Ziggler offering their help to The Club, thus set up the 10-man match for the night’s end. Everybody in the pool!
Meanwhile, as mentioned, the Four Horsewomen put on a heck of a tag team match to open Raw‘s second hour, with Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch teaming with Charlotte Flair to face Sasha Banks and SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley (Flair faces Bayley for that title on Sunday; same for Banks and Lynch). Though sometimes a little sloppy and awkward, the match featured a lot of high-risk action reflective of not just the high stakes of the two matches set for Clash of Champions but the years of history between the four women.
It was given time, too — nearly 20 minutes — and fully captivated the crowd the whole time. Flair got the win over Bayley via Natural Selection. Again, this would have been a much more effective choice for a main event match; the story told was more crucial to Clash of Champions (and beyond) and the crowd has long been invested in these four women, particularly when they are interacting with one another.
This was followed up by yet another high-quality match, a lucha libre showcase between Rey Mysterio and Gran Metalik. Fight forever, indeed. Or, maybe not, given the risks involved; it felt like Escalera de la Muerte from AEW’s All Out, sans escalera. Mysterio got the win via a 619 followed by a Frog Splash, and he also gave respect to Metalik after the match. This might have been the most must-see contest of the night, even with the women’s tag also being quite the show.
While this may not lead to a lucha revival in WWE, we do wish it would (you know, as a way to counter AEW’s commitment to a variety of wrestling styles). At the very least, let’s see Mysterio vs. Kalisto and Mysterio vs. Lince Dorado in the next two weeks. Fun matches just for fun can be effective tools even if they don’t drive a story. Then, let’s circle back to all of that Mysterio and Andrade business. Essentially: Let’s do cool things with Mysterio while we still can.
This week’s Raw also featured a King of the Ring semifinal match, a first-time-ever-for-the-tournament triple threat between Ricochet, Samoa Joe and Baron Corbin. This, too, was a banger; we all know the level of talent Ricochet and Joe both possess and Corbin, despite everything has made marked in-ring improvement. He even had chants in his favor this week, in what might also be a first-time-ever occurrence. Good for him.
Ricochet was set up to win the match, having hit a 630 on Joe, but Corbin was able to take out Ricochet and throw him over the barricade to steal the pin. Corbin will now face (spoiler alert) Chad Gable in the King of the Ring final at Clash of Champions.
We also got a new, and excellent, episode of Bray Wyatt’s Firefly Fun House that can’t quite be described beyond the words “stranger danger.” It’s much better to just watch it than to expect anyone to accurately explain it. It contained threats against Stone Cold and, we think, Strowman and Rollins.
The only other match of the night is Lacey Evans facing Natalya. Natalya taps out Evans with the Sharpshooter and this could serve to bring an end to this brief and not interesting feud.
And that’s this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, a mostly solid affair with strong in-ring work that could have benefited from the women’s tag and the 10-man swapping spots. Do you agree? Are you prepared for King Corbin? Let us know your thoughts below!