This week, Monday Night Raw hailed from overseas in Glasgow, Scotland. Before the show even started, it as announced that Stephanie McMahon would declare the fifth and final member of the Raw Survivor Series team. Was it Seth Rollins? How about Rusev? What about Bo Dallas? Find out below!
Monday Night Raw Review: Glasgow, Scotland
Stephanie McMahon
Stephanie McMahon started the show by trying to act like Smackdown Live! vs. Monday Night Raw was a real feud. She tried her hardest to hype up the “beef between the brands”, but the crowd just didn’t bite. So, defeated, she welcomed the Monday Night Raw’s Men’s Survivor Series team to the ring.
The WWE Universal Champion, Kevin Owens and his best friend, the WWE “List” Champion, Chris Jericho made their way to the ring first. The United States Champion, Roman Reigns was next, and Corey Graves tried to say he received a standing ovation from the crowd. Next was Braun Strowman, who surprisingly managed to make it all the way to the ring without burying Sami Zayn.
Finally, Stephanie announced the fifth and final member of team Raw. Surprising absolutely nobody, it was Seth Rollins. The best wrestler on the planet made his way to the ring, and it became apparent immediately that he had beef with literally everyone in the ring but Strowman.
Stephanie hyped up the match, and insisted that everyone had to get along. Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho were brilliant on the microphone, but honestly, what else is new? McMahon was bad, but JeriKO saved the segment.
Eventually, thngs broke down and everyone started brawling. Strowman was a dominant force, wrecking Rollins and Jericho singlehandedly. Strowman and Reigns were staring each other down when McMahon came back out and announced all five men would fight in a Fatal Fiveway later that night.
Segment/Match Quality- 8/10 Woo’s
Rich Swann & Sin Cara vs. Brian Kendrick & Noam Dar
This episode finally saw Noam Dar make his Monday Night Raw debut in CruiserWeight tag team action. Dar, a native of Scotland, is the first CruiserWeight to be more over than Rich Swann in the ring. It was so smart of WWE to debut Dar in Scotland, because it got the crowd involved. The whole match felt better because the crowd was actually into the match.
Eventually, Swann rolled up the WWE CruiserWeight Champion, Brian Kendrick, for the win. It looks like this means the two will feud for the title soon. After the match, Kendrick grabbed a microphone and began to berate Dar. Kendrick became frustrated and began to beat Dar down. Dar got his revenge, however, kicking Kendrick and knocking him out of the ring.
Segment/Match Quality- 8/10 Woo’s
Team Monday Night Raw (Tag Teams)
The world’s (second) most popular tag team in the world made their way to the ring, and proceeded to SPELL OUT what they thought of Team Smackdown Live. Then The Club, Golden Truth, and Sheasaro (Sticking with it) came to the ring.
Sheamus trashed Scotland in favor of Ireland, and declared himself team captain. Enzo Amore proceeded to verbally destroy him, saying he should be afraid of things like the Sun, kids stealing hs Lucky Charms, etc, etc.
Everyone was taking turns making fun of Sheamus when the real team captains, the New Day came out… with facepaint and bagpipes. Yeah. They went full-Braveheart. Xavier Woods introduced us to the Bagpipes, Francesca‘s scottish cousin, Agnus. This took pandering to a wonderful unexplored level.
Unfortunately for the New Day, tag teams were trying to leave left and right. How did they respond? Big E did the “they’ll never take our freedom!” speech from Braveheart. Seriously. It happened. Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows reluctantly sided with the team, but said to watch their backs.
Segment/Match Quality- 8/10 Woo’s
The New Day vs. Gallows & Anderson
Kofi Kingston and Big E remained in their Braveheart garb as they took on the former IWGP Tag Team Champions. It was a good match, and both Gallows and Anderson dominated for most of the bout. Eventually, Gallows and Anderson hit the Magic Killer for the win over the tag team champions… a week after losing to Enzo Amore.
Halfway through… This has been a spectacular epsode. I’ve probably jinxed it by saying so, but the first half was better than Seahawks vs. Bills.
Segment/Match Quality- 7/10 Woo’s
Golden Truth vs. The Shining Stars
Oh god. I did jinx it.
As far as wrestling is concerned, it was fine. Unlike previous matches, ths one had a reason, and it was decent in the ring. There was a funny spot where Epico got in the ring and tried to sell Golddust on Puerto Rico and he played along, only to tear up the pamphlet. Primo eventually rolled Golddust up for the dirty pin and the win.
This was actually a decent segment. The crowd didn’t care at all, but the match was short and entertaining. Still might end up being the worst segment of the night, but only because the show has been so good.
Segment/Match Quality- 6/10 Woo’s
Women’s Survivor Series Team
Michael Cole opened the segment by explaining how elimination matches work. Yes, seriously. Then he invited the captain of Women’s Team Raw, the WWE Raw Women’s Champion, Charlotte to the ring. Then Nia Jax, Alicia Fox, and Bayley.
Bayley tried to cut a promo, but the Glasgow crowd wouldn’t stop singing at her. It was cool at first, but as Bayley was visibly struggling with the promo, it became annoying. There’s nothing worse than a crowd trying to put themselves over.
They tried to pretend it was Dana Brooke that was the fifth member, but then it was revealed that it was actually Sasha Banks. Sasha managed to calm the crowd by playing along, but the segment just limped by.
It was just bad. The crowd put themselves over and the women tried their best to just bowl through it. It’s not the WWE’s fault or even the women’s fault, the crowd ruined this segment. Their participation had the opposite effect of the CruiserWeight match.
Segment/Match Quality- 3/10 Woo’s
Bayley, Sash Banks, and Alicia Fox vs. Charlotte, Dana Brooke, and Nia Jax
This sparked a spontaneous three on three women’s tag team match. It was a solid bout. Everyone played their part well. Nia Jax looked strong, Dana Brooke was clumsy, and Charlotte was devious. In the end, WWE played off the raucous crowd by letting Bayley get the hot tag and the win, over Charlotte no less.
Segment/Match Quality- 6/10 Woo’s
Rusev vs. Sami Zayn
When we came back from break, Lana was in the ring, claiming her husband, Rusev would be the one to bring Dolph Ziggler‘s Intercontintenal Championship to Monday Night Raw. Sami Zayn came down to the ring, and Rusev dominated for the first part of the match. For most of the match, actually.
Zayn mounted some last-minute offense, and when he got the win, it felt like a surprise… even though everyone knew he was going to win. It was a pretty good match, but it defintely suffered from the fact that everyone knew the outcome.
Segment/Match Quality- 7/10 Woo’s
The Fatal Fiveway
It’s hard to grade a five-man match. There’s so much going on at once that you end up missing things. It started off with Owens and Jericho trying to convince Strowman to beat up Reigns, only to get beat up themselves. Rollins, ever the architecht, went under the ring and started assaulting Strowman with a kendo stick. He pulled out a table, but Strowman got revenge.
There was an interesting moment in the ring when Strowman was beating on Rollins, only to have Reigns save him. They keep teasing a Shield reunion, and I think it’s working wonders for Reigns.
The entire match was built around making Braun Strowman look strong. There was one point when the other four men were attacking Strowman. They eventually got him out of the ring, and it turned into a tag team match betweek Rollins/Reigns and Owens/Jericho.
The best part of the match came when the ring was empty for everyone except for Reigns and Rollins. They stared each other down, but Strowman interrupted. The duo worked together, and then something magical happened.
They were outside the ring with Strowman, and Rollins called for the Sheild powerbomb through the table. For a moment, it was 2014, and everyone loved the Shield. It was incredible. Buuuut then Jericho ruined it. Eventually Rollins powerbombed Jericho through a table.
Another badass moment happened when Kevin Owens threw Rollins up for the pop-up powerbomb and Rollins reversed it into a Pedigree. It was so remarkably sick.
The finish came when Rollins pedigreed Jericho, and Reigns hit Owens with a Superman Punch. Owens landed on Jericho for the pinfall, and man. This match was awesome. This match was freaking incredible. Everyone looked fantastic, and I’m gonna go back and watch this again. 10/10. Wow.
Segment/Match Quality- 10/10 Woo’s
Best Segment/Match of the Night- The Fatal Fiveway
Wow. I’m still so hyped (BRO) about this match. It was incredible. Go ahead and write it down folks, this was the segment for the month of November. Don’t need to see anything else. Go watch this now.
Worst Segment/Match of the Night- Glasgow Ruins Everything
Obviously I mean the women’s Survivor Series segment. This sucks because the segment itself wasn’t terrible. The stories they were trying to tell were good. The problem is the crowd hijacked it. It was worse than Daniel Bryan in Seattle or CM Punk in Chicago. WWE was trying to do something good, and the crowd ruined it. It didn’t help them that this was a really good Raw, and there weren’t a ton of bad segments.
Show Quality- 8/10 Woo’s
This was a fantastic episode. So much better than last week, and I’m so happy I actually watched. Can Raw keep it up? We’ll see, but one thing is for sure, if you didn’t watch this episode, go. Go do it now. Stop what you’re doing. Go. Watch. This. Raw.
