5 things that could happen on RAW next week
Man, I have to say, RAW was a chore and a half to get through this week. It was boring and the wrestling was leagues below what it has been in recent weeks. Jordan and Rollins had a pretty good match and the six-man tag was okay. Gulak vs. Alexander was a good match but Enzo on commentary made it nearly unwatchable. Otherwise, this show was a significant drop off in overall quality from recent weeks on all fronts. There were some good moments and we’ll get into that later. First, here’s what I wrote about last week.
- Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy just talk back and forth again
I was close with this one, but not quite on the mark. Instead of intercutting promos, they had two separate backstage ones. They were actually somewhat coherent, too, which works well. Bray, especially, was more coherent than he has been in quite a long time. He kept it short and made a point. That was great to see. I’ll give myself half a point for this because they still kept this as backstage promos instead of doing something different. Matt playing chess with Napoleon was great. I hope they do something extremely out of the ordinary for the Christmas edition of RAW next week.
- Finn Balor continues to be completely directionless
I’m giving myself three-quarters of a point for this one. Balor participated in a handicap match against the Miztourage, which is exactly what I predicted they would do. He ended up getting his ass handed to him (which is insane and beyond stupid) and needed help to beat them. It was great to see Hideo Itami, who is debuting on 205 Live, help him out. That was a good callback to when Finn debuted in NXT as Hideo’s partner. I don’t know if this signifies the beginning of the cruiserweights being more integrated with the main roster, but that would be nice. It’s probably just to hype Hideo’s debut on 205 Live. Worst case scenario, they’re teasing making Finn a cruiserweight. EIther way, I have a feeling that Finn and Hideo won’t be a regular tag team going forward, so I’m assuming he still has no direction. But I’ll wait and see, which is why I won’t give myself the full point.
- Drew Gulak becomes number 1 contender
Well, I was wrong on this one. Going into the match this week I fully expected this to happen, and a few times Drew came very close to picking up the victory. His promo before the match in the ring, as well as backstage afterwards, were great, and I really hope they do more with him than just comedy.
- Reigns defends the IC Title against Sheamus
Roman Reigns didn’t even appear on RAW this week in any manner, so obviously this didn’t happen. Maybe it’ll happen next week.
- Jason Jordan beats Samoa Joe with help from Roman Reigns
Jordan did indeed come out and demand a match with Samoa Joe for the third week in a row, but he still did not get it. He did have a good match with Seth Rollins instead and got a little bit of Joe in the six-man tag match later on in the night, at least. Reigns, of course, was not on the show. It’s probably going to be a while before JJ gets a chance at Joe in a one-on-one match now, though, because his match with Seth was for a shot at Joe, and he lost. They do realize that Joe isn’t a champion or a number 1 contender for anything… why exactly was this match for a shot at wrestling him? I can understand if it was a chance to wrestle him that night but on a future show? That’s pretty silly.
Overall - This week I only ended up at 1.25 out of 5. I was looking pretty strong at the beginning, but my last three predictions were completely off the mark. So now that this week is over and done with, what can we expect on the Christmas night edition of Monday Night RAW?
#5 John Cena announces entry in the Royal Rumble match
The first official entrant in this year’s Rumble match is Elias, as he announced it this week on RAW. I expect that during his appearance on the Christmas episode next week, one of John Cena’s main directives will be to announce that he will be in the Royal Rumble match because he wants one more shot to try to get World Title number 17.
He’ll probably get interrupted by a couple of geeks like Gallows and Anderson who will try to ruin his Christmas spirit, and he’ll beat them up before leaving the ring and not showing up for the rest of the night. This will be the show’s opening segment.