WWE Monday Night Raw recap: Little machka brats

The Kabuki Warriors dismiss Paige, Ricochet faces Drew McIntyre and a bad storyline continues to get worse on this week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.

This week’s Monday Night Raw was the last placeholder episode of WWE programming ahead of Thursday’s Saudi Arabia show. And while it did much in service of that show’s match card, it also moved forward with some feuds that will fuel the next month’s worth of programming.

But because it was a placeholder, it’s hard to call it an overall good or successful episode of Raw. And its “main event?” Dreadful. Here is the Monday Night Raw recap for Oct. 28, 2019.

We mist you

The show opens with Paige coming out to put over The Kabuki Warriors, the current WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions and former managerial charges of Paige’s before she recently underwent neck surgery, forcing her off of television.

However, in that span, the team of Asuka and Kairi Sane have turned heel. This was further cemented on Monday with Asuka hitting Paige with the Green Mist, confirming that the relationship is over.

Becky Lynch made the save, leading into her match with Sane, which was good — to be expected given both women’s level of talent. Lynch won via Dis-Arm-Her. While it would be fun to fantasy book a situation where either Sane or Asuka are Lynch’s next challengers for the Raw Women’s Championship, as long as the duo are tag champs that doesn’t seem likely.

It also doesn’t seem likely that The Kabuki Warriors are going to drop said championships on NXT this week to Dakota Kai and Tegan Nox, so the Sane-Lynch match was simply another of WWE’s “champions showcases.” That’s not a problem, per se, but it also feels like Lynch is treading water at present.

She doesn’t have a clear challenger and with Survivor Series coming up, Lynch seems likely to captain Team Raw in the women’s match. So we might be waiting a little while longer for someone to come after Lynch’s title.

Filler, because we need it

Thanks mostly to Crown Jewel, the majority of the matches on this week’s Raw were filler. Buddy Murphy defeated R-Truth to remind us that R-Truth is the 24/7 Champion (rules not in effect during this match), the 24/7 Championship is Raw-exclusive and that Buddy Murphy is indeed part of the red brand and maybe — just maybe — can get re-pushed because it initially seemed so promising earlier this year on SmackDown.

The Viking Raiders — Raw Tag Team Champions, mind you — defeated local talent, Mike Sydal and Kyle Roberts, here known as “Bryant and Rizzo,” named after said Cubs players and wearing Cubs gear as a way to provoke the St. Louis crowd.

It’s obvious why WWE made this choice rather than establishing new contenders for the Viking Raiders’ titles; there is the matter of the Super Gigantic Tag Team Turmoil match (or whatever) on Thursday, where nothing of importance is really at stake, and until we get over that hurdle there’s no reason to pick a challenger for the champions.

We also had a women’s tag match that paired up Natalya and Charlotte Flair (because … reasons?), who took on The IIconics. Natalya got the win via Sharpshooter and the whole thing has us wondering if Flair is somehow a mid-carder now? That doesn’t make sense but it’s also difficult to figure out what WWE wants to do with her.

Though a natural rival to Becky Lynch and thus a challenger for the championship, a) we’ve seen that and seen that and seen that and it needs to feel fresh for us to see it again; b) Flair and Lynch were most recently allies against Bayley and Sasha Banks pre-brand split and they haven’t yet figured out how to rework that dynamic. Plus she and Lynch will likely have to be on the same team come Survivor Series. The women’s division is essentially circling itself here, but hopefully not down the drain.

In more filler that at least connects to an ongoing rivalry, Sin Cara attempted to even the odds in this week’s match against Andrade, by bringing Carolina to the ring with him to negate the influence of Zelina Vega. That, however, backfired when Vega confronted Carolina, distracting Sin Cara and allowing Andrade to roll him up (with a feet-on-the-ropes assist) and get the pin.

The good news, though, is that this could and should lead to a mixed-tag match and could thus also result in more TV matches for Vega. Also curious to see if Carolina becomes a permanent part of the Raw women’s roster.

Requisite Team Flair/Team Hogan stuff

Aside from a boxer and a former MMA fighter, the biggest match being hyped for Thursday’s event is a five-on-five tag match pitting Team Hulk Hogan versus Team Ric Flair. So to remind us of that fact, Ricochet and Drew McIntyre (representing teams Hogan and Flair, respectively) faced off in a rematch of the previous week. Flair and Hogan were again in attendance for this.

This was easily the best match of the night and was given more than adequate time to connect it both to the Thursday 10-man tag match as well as the individual rivalry between both men. However, the match ended not with a pinfall or submission but instead via RKO (outta nowhere), with Team Flair member Randy Orton hitting it on Ricochet to lead to a disqualification finish. That was (aside from Hogan being around yet again) the low point in what was an otherwise stellar match.

Falls count … whatever

To prepare (?) for his falls count anywhere Universal Championship defense against The Fiend on Thursday, Seth Rollins had a falls count anywhere match against former Wyatt Family member Erick Rowan. This had all the requisite action — slams and stomps on tables and ladders, clanging poles, brawling in the concourses — and concluded when, in callback to Rowan’s forklift attack on Roman Reigns this summer, Rollins pinned Rowan under a forklift’s fork for the win.

This was … a match; fun enough generally, but the forklift spot at the end was awkward despite it’s attempt at being clever. Rollins also acknowledged that burning down the Firefly Fun House didn’t work, which is yet another example of how weirdly/badly WWE has handled this feud. It’s stuck in this do-an-unpopular-thing-and-then-walk-it-back-immediately-because-it’s-unpopular loop. Thursday’s not going to fix it, either.

Hopefully this means something

Last week, Humberto Carrillo and his youthful hubris earned him a match with Seth Rollins. This week, he’s drawn the attention of AJ Styles and The O.C., the trio accosting him backstage. The confrontation led to a match between Carrillo and Styles later on in the night.

Like the match with Rollins, Carrillo was given time to show off why he’s getting these matches with Raw‘s top talent and was again impressive. Even better is that Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows had no appreciable interference, only involving themselves in a post-match beatdown. Said beatdown was a result of Styles’ faking out a post-match handshake after Styles won by submission and Carrillo attacking him for his arrogance.

Of course, that three-on-one advantage overtook Carrillo quickly and Styles hit him with a Styles Clash. The Street Profits came out and made the save, so expect a six-man match for next Monday’s show. It’ll be interesting to see if this leads to a longer one-on-one feud between Styles and Carrillo or if WWE is just cycling Carrillo through some of the red brand’s biggest names in a way to endear him to the fans and highlight that he can hang with said big names.

TMI

Because WWE doesn’t notice or care, the Lana-Rusev-Bobby Lashley storyline took another leap … uh, forward? … on Monday, with Lana and Rusev the guests on Jerry Lawler’s King’s (Divorce) Court. Lana explains why she’s left Rusev: He’s a sex addict who is obsessed with getting her pregnant, and a pregnancy would ruin her career. She also said Lashley told her that Rusev had been cheating on her, which Rusev denies.

Anyway, Lashley comes to the ring. This happens:

Lashley strikes Rusev with a low-blow and the show ends with Lana and Lashley making out, literally over Rusev’s prone body. O … kay???

This is all so stupid and gross and problematic and unnecessary and boring and insulting and needs to culminate in Rusev popping Lashley’s head off of his neck and then sending Lana (kayfabe) packing permanently. He doesn’t need these people and neither do we. Brutal.

And that’s how Raw ended for this week in another example of WWE choosing to negate any good will built up over the course of the show by a terrible finish. This show should just be two hours long. Seriously.

So let us know your thoughts on this week’s Raw in the comments below, you little machka brats.