The New Day kicking off Monday Night RAW can never be a bad thing, the trio did a great job of working the crowd up (Big E using the Pittsburgh Steelers towel got a shed load of heat!) for WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Sheamus to make his entrance. WWE were clearly hoping that some of the WWE Tag Team Champions undeniable popularity would rub off on Sheamus and in a way it kind of worked. The crowd continued to pour heat on the Celtic Warrior, who looked like he'd just come from a wedding in his suit, whilst the Irish did a pretty good job with his promo. Whilst it was clunky towards the end, thanking Roman Reigns for his title win and riffing off Stone Cold's famous promo with "Sheamus 5:15", in reference to how long Reigns held the main belt for at Survivor Series, were both well crafted and well performed. The pay-off of Reigns running in to attack Sheamus was left just long enough for it to be surprising and with Shamo's celebration fireworks still going off provided a brilliant visual to close the first part of the show. The Juggernaut walking out with the title seemed to be to set up an angle for their TLC bout in two weeks...
Fast-Forward...The story continued backstage with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon managing to get the belt back from Roman Reigns, booking an intriguing World Heavyweight Championship contest with a 5 minute, 15 second time limit for later in the show...Tyler Breeze (and Summer Rae) already being in the ring for his match with Dolph Ziggler when we came back from the ad break didn't bode well for Prince Pretty...
Dolph Ziggler and Tyler Breeze's bout was a slight improvement on their bout at Survivor Series just eight days earlier, but still didn't have enough time on TV (Just over 10 minutes in the arena) to really have a chance to take things to the next level. The back and forth sequence that would lead to the finish with both men attempting a number of different pinfall combinations made the bout feel almost like a Beat the Clock challenge, and whilst it was fun to watch, you wouldn't have guessed that the two had had any involvement with each other storyline-wise prior to the encounter. Ziggler getting his win back with a flash superkick doesn't really help anyone in the long run and stunt any momentum that Breeze heading into final few weeks of WWE's Autumn programme.
MIZ TV! Who doesn't love Miz TV? I'll tell you who, me! This was wank, it really was. The Miz was inconsequential and I have no interest in Rusev and Lana's relationship any more, because of how much flip flopping WWE did with the duo over the spring and summer. The crowd however did seem to be enjoying themselves, getting involved when both Rusev and Lana denied "going all the way" with previous flames Summer Rae and Dolph Ziggler by chanting "Yes you did". Whilst the content was cringe worthy it was nice to see a creative crowd getting involved with the story. Ryback coming out to interrupt the duo big ol' heel snog made absolutely no sense either, made even more clear by Michael Cole only managing to utter the words "The Big Guy" when Big Hungry came out. Maybe Ryback just hates PDA.
Fast-Forward...Ryback then beat Rusev via countout after a silly angle that saw Lana get injured by the steel steps and Rusev help her and lose (Because that's going to get heel heat)...Ryback looked awkward as fuck, whilst Rusev carried his fiancée up the ramp...Triple H adding another stipulation to the Sheamus/Roman Reigns title bout later was intriguing development as he placed Dean Ambrose's Intercontinental Championship shot on the line as well...
Another in-ring segment because everyone loves in-ring segments! Okay, so this one was actually pretty sweet, with The Dudley Boyz now deeply embedded in a feud with The Wyatt Family and the gimmick of having tables with the names of the Family on them was a cool idea (even if Bubba had used it before in TNA) The build towards the WWE return of Tommy Dreamer in his first TV appearance for the 'E since 2012 was great, with the crowd popping big for Dreamer coming out to even the score for his former ECW (and erm...TNA) pals. "This is Awesome" chants might have been a little bit over the top, but still this was nice way to further the issues between the Dudleyz and The Wyatt Family whilst bringing back a popular face near to his old stomping ground.
Fast-Forward...For me, it should have stopped there, the six man tag bout felt way too much like filling for time, especially with the screwy no contest finish...However, Bray Wyatt's "Get the tables" call was cool as, and the Family matriarch getting sent through a table by Bubba Ray Dudley finished things off nicely...Alberto Del Rio and Zeb Colter continuing to struggle to find anything resembling chemistry during their entrance, but the WWE United States Champion getting in Goldust's face before their bout allowed the champ to show some real fire...It was a shame that their bout ended up being a complete squash, WWE has quickly forgotten how popular Goldust was upon his return, a lengthy contest would have done much more for Del Rio...WWE continued to paint Del Rio's feud with Jack Swagger by the numbers, as Swagger ran out to make the save for Goldust post-match...Just in case you weren't sure who Charlotte's Dad was, she agreed to a match with pal Becky Lynch only if her Daddy could be in her corner...I was pretty damn excited to see The Usos and The Lucha Dragons duke it out to become Number One Contender to the New Day's WWE Tag Team Championships, as the four made their entrances...Whilst their were flashes of what the match could have been and The New Day were brilliant on commentary, having the trio cause a double disqualification was a disappointing and lazy piece of booking...We got an in-vision promo from Team B.A.D. as Sasha Banks made her entrance for her match with Brie Bella, what a time to be alive...
I couldn't quite get my head around the booking of the Sasha Banks vs. Brie Bella contest. Sasha is clearly the more popular of the two heels, and constantly get's "We Want Sasha" chants during others matches, and no one particularly cares for Brie Bella, so WWE had Sasha dominate the contest, before Brie made a babyface comeback (Yes Kicks and all) before The Boss got a clean submission victory. Whilst the action was decent (if not a little clunky at times), the crowd never seemed to interested in what was going on, because they couldn't buy in to a heel vs. heel contest, where they were supposedly supposed to root for the least over participant of the bout. Some one like Natalya would surely have been a better option as an opponent for Sasha to go over.
Fast-Forward...The commentary team hammered home the various stipulations for Roman Reigns and Sheamus' WWE World Heavyweight Championship contest, which was oddly placed as the lead-in for the 2nd hour...It was disappointing to not see the bout go the full time limit as I thought the action before hand was of a high quality with a real drive and urgency about it, but Rusev attacking Reigns with a minute to go put an end to things...A new faction being born and involving more than the fashionable three men was an interesting development with Alberto Del Rio joining the European trio of Sheamus, Rusev and King Barrett as The League of Nations, hopefully this means Mex-America is dead...It was absolute dreamland time, as The New Day advertised some products for WWEShop.com...More Ric Flair as the 2 time WWE World Heavyweight Champion made good on his promise and escorted his daughter, WWE Diva's Champion, Charlotte to the ring for bout with Becky Lynch...This bout deserved so much more than the couple of minutes it got on TV, the wrestling between Charlotte and Becky was so damn good, with a surprise finish of the champ faking a knee injury to pick up a roll up victory, there just wasn't enough of it...Becky's lingering face of disappointment in the ring, was complemented by Paige's mad rambling at the commentary desk...The two Divas knocked their backstage segment out of the park, adding fuel to fire of interest that their match started, before Paige added a well-timed exclamation mark...Adam Rose has a new gimmick, as a gossip, and it's actually glorious, how it will transfer to the wrestling ring I'm not quite sure...With Michael Cole announcing a Eight Man Tag as the main event, The New Day went and changed things, by the League of Nations side, turning it into a 7 on 4 handicap bout...
A little bit of something different for the main event with the aforementioned League of Nations/New Day alliance taking on Roman Reigns and his allies The Usos and Dean Ambrose. The early part of the bout showed promise with the face shine including a nice moment of the babyfaces using the New Day's Unicorn Stampede on Xavier Woods and Woods selling the attack like it was life threatening. An Uso (why did they stop wearing red and blue so I could tell them apart) worked well as the twin in peril, with the heels focusing in on a leg injury (with JBL putting his best piece of commentary in years, trying to convince his partners that Uso was doing the same as Charlotte did earlier), allowing the contest to settle into a pretty familiar pattern as the heels made some quick tags. I would have liked to have seen a bit more cheating and classic dirty tactics from the League of Nations and New Day, as the seven on four setting was a real opportunity to build and build the crowd support for the babyfaces.
We did get to see some decent psychology however with the heels being able to take advantage of their numbers to quell a Roman Reigns hot tag and take the Usos out of the equation for most of the bout as well. I thought the build to the second hot tag to Dean Ambrose was spot-on with heels continuing to work over Reigns for a long time and the crowd steadily getting drawn into the action and chanting "We Want Ambrose", you could feel what was coming and the anticipation felt really quite nice. Of course, Ambrose's hot tag was great, he's an exciting wrestler to watch, especially in this kind of setting, give him more moments like this and he'll go the same route as Daniel Bryan did a few years ago. It was Sheamus however who claimed the victory for his team, after a frenetic closing sequence, hitting a Brogue Kick on Ambrose. It feels strange to be writing "A Huge victory for the WWE World Heavyweight Champion" but after how he was booked last week, it was superb to see the Irishman looking strong in the victory and not falling to a team with less men on it, which would have left his title reign dead in the water.
Fast-Forward...The show closes with The New Day and The League of Nations standing strong after holding back a fight back from Reigns, please WWE keep these stables looking this strong, it'll mean so much more when someone takes their titles from them...
Finally...
ATPW Scale Rating - 3.94 (Poor - Average TV)
This week's edition did manage to the dubious honour of improving on last week's show but was still had a lot of problems. There wasn't enough of the stuff that was good (with Charlotte and Becky's bout standing out in particular) and too much of the stuff that was shit (Miz TV, Sasha vs. Brie etc.). The booking was all over the place and at times felt like it was being done on the fly, why on earth did Rusev walk out of his match with Ryback to help Lana, only to join a new faction later on? Same could be said for Alberto Del Rio's inclusion in the group. There was way too much focus on the Roman Reigns and Sheamus feud that absolutely dominated the show this week, opening the show, the 3rd hour and closing the show, in a show that is supposed to be about having different elements that appeal to everyone, if the feud isn't doing anything for you, then you were pretty fucked this week. That's before I've even got into those long-ass fast-forward sections (including anything that doesn't get longer than five minutes) towards the end of this week's review.
With just one week of RAW left before TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs and ratings continuing to slump, WWE needs to start putting more effort into the show. The booking ranges from unimaginative and lazy to down right baffling. I'm sure TLC with a fine show with plenty of weapon spots and the like, but WWE needs to give people more of a reason to keep tuning in each week soon or they'll end up in an even worse position than they are now.
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