The show begins with a recap of last week’s main event match, with KO beating Roman thanks to Rusev. Roman comes out to a chorus of boos. Steph comes out to big dog the Big Dog. And then Mick comes down before she can speak. He gets a Foley chant that Steph co-opts. Foley makes Roman vs. Rusev for the US Title for the PPV. Foley says that Stephanie is on the up and up and he is offended when folks go behind his back, and he doesn’t understand why people boo Roman Reigns. Mick says this is A FIGHT FOR OUR SURVIVAL AGAINST SMACKDOWN LIVE! Mick makes Roman vs. Owens tonight – so the buildup for Roman vs. Rusev for the US Title involves TWO MATCHES with the Universal Champion. OF COURSE! Also the main event tonight is a cage match.
Now Stephanie is upset with Mick for putting Kevin Owens in the first-ever Raw-only PPV. Rusev is upset with Mick for ruining Lana’s special night – her Interrogation DVD comes out tomorrow. Mick tells Rusev to wrestle and then answers his phone for “Chris Jericho” in the most awkward manner imaginable. Rusev dominates Seth, who plays a fine babyface in peril. Rusev bearhugs him, but eats elbows. Seth gets 2 off a falcon arrow and hits the flying knee. They fight on the floor and up the ramp for a double countout. Seth dives off the announce table onto the floor on Rusev.
Charlotte and Dana point out last week’s double pin, so Mick makes the women’s title match a triple threat and Charlotte pushes Dana down. Cruiserweight hype video airs showing off the “Raw Cruiserweight’ division. Owens and Jericho meet backstage and Jericho grabs paper to list all of Mick’s mistakes as GM. Braun vs. Sin Cara II is up. Sin Cara’s busting out his Christmas gear early – or Mick commissioned some for himself and found that it didn’t fit. Strowman plants him with a running powerslam and wins. Bayley says she’s excited to compete with Sasha, and then Sasha points out that their “good old days” are over. She’s a heel, right? Bayley and Sasha face Dana and Charlotte next.
Sasha comes out and gives her Connor’s Cure bandana to a fan. Bayley’s out and the heels dominate for a bit. Charlotte lets go of a surfboard on Bayley to “woo” a bit. Charlotte winds up and chops so Dana can “woo”. Bayley and Sasha land a double suplex before Sasha talks smack. Sasha is locked in a bow and arrow against the post. Bayley tags in and runs wild. Charlotte boots her and wins. Seth is outside Stephanie’s office, and we get an SD ad for Miz vs. Dolph and Cena vs. Ambrose.
Byron plugs the Grizzlies in the crowd before Seth and Steph meet and she exposits about HHH and he says that he’ll be a Universal Champion that she can’t control. So now the story is that Owens is in Steph’s pocket? When did that become a thing? She now thinks that Owens has replaced Seth as The Man. Bo comes out and says things that no one in the building cares about. Bo squashes the jobber and wins with a roll of the dice. Cesaro walks backstage for his next match with Sheamus.
CWC Finale hype video airs showing TJ Perkins winning the cruiserweight title. A graphic airs showing the scorecard for the Cesaro vs. Sheamus feud. Sheamus says that Cesaro always comes up short in the big matches. The match starts off fast with each man landing a flurry of strikes, but Sheamus monkey flips Cesaro to the floor for an ad break. Cesaro gets 2 off the springboard uppercut. Cesaro goes for a powerplex, but Sheamus hits White Noise on the apron for 2. Sheamus lands a sloppy celtic cross into the irish curse for 2. Cesaro lands the neutralizer and wins. Mick and Jericho bicker for a bit so Mick can plug the cruiserweights. Jericho mocks Mick for his fashion sense, and adds that to the List of Jericho. Jericho and Mick actually had great chemistry there – but the verbiage was awful.
Jericho comes out to read a list – unlike his rattling off of 1,004 holds, this is not exactly great. Enzo and Cass come out while Enzo mocks Jericho for looking ridiculous – well, that was great. Cass makes a bunch of outdated references while Jericho mocks him and then the Shining Stars come out to plug timeshares before the New Day comes down. Jesus is this ever random. Then the Bullet Club came down to rant about the timeshare-selling guys and the New Day plugging Youtube and cereal. Jericho said he’s adding this idiocy to the list before Sami Zayn jumps him leading to a 10 man tag.
Kofi gets 2 on Jericho, but the heels beat up Kofi before he tags in Cass. Cass runs wild on Primo and gets 2 off the Empire Elbow. Primo mocks Enzo’s dance, resulting in a boot off the apron.. Rocket Launcher gets the win for the faces. Gran Metalik and Rich Swann are hyped up because their match is next. Hispanic Heritage month is celebrated with Eddie Guerrero. “He has a heart as big as a mountain.” seems like a bad clip to put in this. Mick talks about how the size of the fight in the dog is what matters. Mick is really nervous and screwing up lines left and right. Swann comes out as Cole talks about how he lost both parents at a young age. Gran Metalik is hyped up as a longtime veteran while Cedric gets a mild reaction, but Cole hypes up HHH putting him over after his final CWC match. THE Brian Kendrick gets no reaction, but his inset promo about being fired in 2009 and thinking he was done was excellent. Mick hypes up HOW GREAT THIS WILL BE, so they’re doomed. They need to have a great match, and if they don’t have a classic, it will kill the division on day one. The winner of this match gets a shot at the cruiserweight title at Clash of Champions.
Swann and Metalik get into a tumbling exchange before Cedric hits a springboard lariat. CA flips out of a flying headscissors that almost gets a reaction from the crowd. CA hits a flip dive to the floor and lands on his feet – this brings the crowd to life. Kendrick traps Swann in the steps and stomps away at him. Cole calls Metalik the king of the ropes a few thousand times, and Metalik hits a nice springboard elbow. Swann’s standing 450 gets messed up a bit and gets 2. Bully Choke is now the Captain’s Hook because you can’t have a choke on Raw and he makes Cedric tap out. They talk about how great TJ is without showing more clips of his greatness and we get a graphic for the cruiserweight title match at COC. Recap of Nia Jax vs. Alicia Fox last week leads to them saying that Jax vs. Fox is going to be on the kickoff show.
A St. Jude hospital visit is chronicled to remind everyone of how amazing WWE and Stephanie McMahon are. Main event is up. Roman’s out, followed by Owens. Roman’s early fury is countered by Owens tossing him into the cage and getting 2 off a superkick. We are alerted to “the Big Dog marking his territory” on commentary, which seems horrific. After a break, they’re fighting on the top rope. Roman hits his corner lariats Reigns counters the powerbomb with a superman punch for 2. KO hits his finisher and that gets 2 here in this Raw main event. Owens tries to climb through the door, but Roman climbs over the top and hits the floor first – so before his US Title match, Roman beats the World Champion. Yeah, this makes logical sense. Rusev beats up Roman, which does at least make sense since Roman is weakened and kicks the door into Roman’s face.
Owens yelling “MATCHKA SOMETHING” may be the best part of Raw by far. Rusev grabs a chain and locks the cage door so he and Owens can keep beating up Roman. Rusev locks on the Accolade, but Seth climbs up the cage and dives on the heels ala Rey in ’02 on SmackDown. According to Cole, this shows how much Seth wants to be champion. So Seth diving from a small height before, and then diving from a larger height shows how much he wants to be champion? That’s it? Is this a freefall competition or something?
Screenshot Gallery –
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