As we see another RAW come and go, counting down the remaining months of 2020, last night’s latest episode was for various reasons a mixed bag.
Vince McMahon’s reportedly high opinion of former NXT champion Keith Lee seems to be on track. Lee cleanly pinned Randy Orton at Payback and proceeded to advance to a Triple Threat match on RAW’s main event by beating a very game Dolph Ziggler.
The fact that, in the aforementioned Triple Threat, Orton pinned Seth Rollins, who took Lee’s powerbomb finisher The Spirit Bomb, instead of Lee himself after Orton gave him the RKO, tells you that the build to keep Lee dominant is ongoing. Looks like he’s getting that push “to the moon”, perhaps to the chagrin of one Cameron Grimes.
But the overall presentation of RAW was quite bland and definitely gave more of a transitional vibe on the way to the Clash of Champions pay per view. As expected, Orton will face WWE Champion Drew McIntyre again for the title. If Orton is booked to emerge victorious with the championship, he has Lee already in line as a possible first opponent.
However, several ongoing storylines need to be put to bed. The never ending saga of Rollins and the Mysterio family seems to have yet another chapter, even with Rey suffering a tricep tear from the tag team bout he had with his son Dominik against Rollins and Murphy on Payback. One would think that the father and son duo winning that match would end it.
Originally, had Rey not gotten injured, his one on one match with Rollins would have been the other alternative to cap off this rivalry as there was word Rollins was looking for time off in anticipation of the birth of his first child with Becky Lynch. With another win over Dominik from ‘the Monday Night Messiah’, is there any chance this feud will end before 2020 is over?
Another RAW long drawn out feud is the one between Apollo Crews, Cedric Alexander, Ricochet and ‘The Hurt Business’ of Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin and MVP. This rivalry has been going on for what seems like months, dating back to when Apollo first won the United States Championship and MVP just started getting together with Lashley.
MVP has also been attempting to “recruit” Alexander, a former Cruiserweight champion, to his side and every time it hasn’t happened; it would be more interesting if Cedric did turn on his friends and side with Hurt Business, but that would just perpetuate this feud further…and frankly I’ve lost interest in it.
As for the women’s division picture, splitting up the only actual tag team (The Iconics) in what was literally a nothing burger match would only result in Billie Kay being relegated to the backstage area, out of sight as Peyton Royce gets a singles run as per McMahon’s direction.
Now that Bayley and Sasha have been sent back to Smackdown on account of them losing the Women’s Tag titles, the RAW title picture would need some replacements to face Asuka and Royce could be positioned in such a spot. Also, the segment from last night seems to put Mickie James as Asuka’s possible Clash opponent.
There is a credible crop of challengers, aside from Mickie and Royce, as Bianca Belair has been impressive in the last few times she’s been on RAW; it would be baffling if she wasn’t directed towards a future title opportunity. But right now, the RAW Women’s contenders field seems pretty shallow and last night’s segment was rather weak sauce.
As for the unlikely pairing of Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler as the new Women’s Tag Team champions, I’m all for seeing how this ‘proverbial odd couple’ would work out, and they already have challengers in the reformed Riott Squad in Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan. I hope to see more of Nia and Shayna across all three brands taking on every challenger.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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