This week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw saw the WWE start to plan out their Tables, Ladders and Chairs pay-per-view and a number of new matches were added on the show. Here is a look at what happened on this week’s “Raw.”
Breakdown
CM Punk opened the show by coming out to the ring and basically saying he hopes that The Authority was not responsible for the Shield attack last week because he does not want to get involved in a feud with The Authority. He then insults The Authority, which made no sense if he did not want to be involved in a feud with them. Well, that brought out Stephanie McMahon, who said they had nothing to do with the attack. She then called out Kane.
Kane said that he investigated, since that is his new job as Director of Authority, and The Authority were not involved. That brought out The Shield. Stephanie called them off and said that they needed to respect CM Punk and she left. Kane then said he should be respected and challenged, so he gets The Shield in a three-on-one handicap match at TLC.
The first match was between Dolph Ziggler and Damien Sandow to determine who will compete at TLC for the Intercontinental title against Big E Langston. Big E was at ringside doing commentary. These two men beat each other in the past two weeks and this is the rubber match. Sandow won the match and will go to TLC with a chance for the IC title.
The Bella Twins and Natalya wrestled AJ Lee, Tamina Snuka and Summer Rae next and Natalya beat Lee. Because of this win, Natalya gets a Diva’s title shot at TLC.
Wade Barrett is back and has a new gimmick called “Bad News Barrett” where he gives the crowd bad news, which makes fun of them. Backstage, Randy Orton tells Brad Maddox to tell The Authority that Randy Orton is bigger than the WWE.
The next match saw Daniel Bryan face Erick Rowan. The explanation for his re-appearance was that he was left in an abandoned parking lot after the show last week. This was a really good match between a little man and big man and Bryan won with a roll up. Bray Wyatt cut a promo after the match asking Bryan to join them and saying they can tear the place apart together. After the promo, Bryan meets up with Kane in the back and he also gets a three-on-one handicap match, just like CM Punk, against The Wyatt Family at TLC.
R-Truth and Xavier Woods fought Tons of Funk next. See, last week Woods was loaned the Funkadactyls and Brodus Clay was made because he got a bigger pop than he does while dancing with them. Brodus told Woods he is a rookie and needs to know his place. Woods pinned Clay with the roll up and then Clay acted really mad at his partner Tensai.
Sin Cara fought Alberto Del Rio in the next match and picked up the big upset win with a senton. Rumor has it that it was actually Hunico under the match instead of the real Sin Cara for this match.
A big six man match was up next with The Rhodes Dynasty and Big Show taking on The Shield. This was a fantastic match with Big Show taking quite a beating during the match. The Shield won when they pinned Goldust who was focusing on Dean Ambrose when Seth Rollins was actually the legal man.
Up next Ryback and Curtis Axel wrestled The Miz and Kofi Kingston. This is just strange, because the WWE turned Miz heel a few weeks back and then changed their mind because he has a movie to promote. So they had Kofi act like a heel just to show they were frustrated. Now, they are teaming again. Ryback actually got the win when he pinned Kofi so Miz slapped Kingston after the match. This is just way too confusing.
Mark Henry squashed Fandango in the next match and was pretty funny making fun of Fandango’s dancing.
The Real Americans were up next and beat The Prime Time Players. They are still playing at the stupid idea that Titus O’Neil wants to throw up when he is in Antonio Cesaro’s Big Spin.
Finally, the “main event” of WWE Monday Night Raw was a contract signing between Randy Orton and John Cena. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon once again “guaranteed” that after TLC there would be only one world champion. Orton talked about how he is the best wrestler of all time. Then Cena cut a GREAT promo about how Triple H handpicked Orton because Orton is the most gifted wrestler in the entire company, but then Orton got lazy and has been the biggest disappointment in the WWE. The two ended up brawling and Cena put Orton through two different tables to end the show.
Analysis
This was a decent show. Yeah, there were five or six matches that pretty much sucked or were barely average, but they were kept short. The Daniel Bryan match and the six-man match were pretty great though. With that in mind, the WWE actually decided to announce matches in advance of the PPV instead of waiting till the last minute to do so. The final promo was good and the opening was solid, if a bit confusing considering CM Punk claimed to want to have nothing to do with The Authority. Overall, it was an average show with a few highlights, but nothing that was “must-see TV.”