Raw Review (2021-11-29)
The show kicks off with an early BURN IT DOWN.
Seth’s promo have so much charisma right now, Seth claims he has some breaking news and then announces that he is going to face Big E at Day 1. Works the crowd a bit more after this talking about Day 1 being an appropriate name as it will the first day of his championship reign, felt like they should have put a New day comment in here seen as he’s going to be facing Big E.
Finn Balors music hits
He comes down to the ring and attacks Seth, he throws Seth around outside the ring and Finn gets his revenge for last week and hits Seth with the steel steps, he throws Seth back into the ring
The ref speaks to them and they both tell the ref to ring the bell.
Seth Rollins vs Finn Balor
Finn goes for an early Coupe de gras, but Seth rolls out the ring, Finn then follows up with a suicide dive through the ropes, Seth hits a superplex reloads it then hits a falcon arrow, very impressive to watch, Seth goes for the frog splash but Finn gets his knees up and turns it into a cradle roll up.. kick out at 1.
Finn gets up for his signature standing Coupe de gras type thing and pin, kick out then goes for a sling blade, Rollins counters and hits his own sling blade followed up by a schoolboy super kick with another pin and kick out. Seth then lines up for the stomp but Balor counters with his own sling blade and shotgun drop kick. He goes up too for the coupe de gras which Seth moves out the way of, he rolls up Seth for a kick out and then they hit each other and both drop to the mat….. and breathe.
What a match so far.
The ref gets to about 5 as they are both down in the ring,
This is the first time in a long time I’ve seen the ref count for this
Anyway they both get up and have some back and forth hits and hit each other with an enzuigiri each. There is a few reversals and Seth finally hits a stomp after poking Finn in the eye for the 123.
What a fantastic match to start the show off of, Finn and Seth complement each other brilliantly in pretty much every way, their chemistry is great and their similar move sets could be a brilliant storyline for a feud.
I think I’d rather watch this feud than Seth vs Kevin Owens or Big E, but like I have previously said a number of times, Seth doesn’t need to be in title contention to have a good feud.
This was an incredibly good match to start off the show and was a great showcase of both their talent.
Winner: Seth Rollins
Next up we have BIG TIME BECKS
WOAOHHHHH WOAOHHH
We go to break and when we come back we’re watching a Segment backstage with Vince McMahon and Austin Theory, where Vince tells Austin he is going to sit with him to watch the show and says if he ever steals from him again, he’ll kill him…
Back out to the ring where we’ve got a Becky Lynch and Liv Morgan contract signing
Becky starts to hit a promo on Liv asking whether she is going to “not hold back” and show some fire, it’s then announced the Championship is going to be next week on MONDAY NIGHT RAW!
Becky then goes to do her fantastic work to rile up the crowd like she usually does.
Liv tells her to please shut up to a big cheer and then goes on to wind up Becky about crying about Charlotte and has a ready-made video package of Becky’s interview after the Charlotte Flair match.
Liv says that Becky is the reason Becky’s friends are gone and that Becky’s big contract is the reason Livs friends are gone.
Becky goes on to announce
5v5 woman’s match
Team Liv vs Team Becks
Liv needs to improve on her ability to play on the crowd for her promos to go to the next level on that, Becky can play the crowd, Liv doesn’t really have that in her wheelhouse at the moment, but it will come with time.
We’re backstage with RKBro some peak, not too cringy comedy from Riddle.
I still love them, whoever thought of them is genius. Give him a raise or let him have some more creative control
Next up we have
RKBro vs Dirty Dawgs
For the Raw tag team championships
I really don’t like Bobby Roode and I’m not sure why
Dirty Dawgs attack as soon as the bell goes and hit an early tag team attack on riddle. They hit another one soon after and try to take early control of the match, Riddle gets a early hot tag from to Randy who goes for a draping DDT on Dolph but Roode pulls him away. Randy hits Dolph off the commentary table and Randy goes for another move and Dolph counters into a superkick.
There’s some pretty standard ring work until Randy tags in riddle and he hits some nice signature Matt riddle offence on both the Dirty Dawgs and THEN Matt hits some signature Randy Orton offence with a draping DDT on Roode.
Matt and Randy both do the Randy Orton slam the ground for a double RKO but they both get countered and Ziggler hits the Zig zag on Randy, he then goes to “tune up the band” for a superkick, gets countered into a RKO for the 123
AND STILL
A very good match that was given a decent amount of time, Matt Riddle and Randy Orton work so well together, I never would have called that. This was a very entertaining to watch match that had a satisfying finish with NO SHENANIGANS what more do you need.
Winner: RKBro
We go backstage to Seth Rollins who gets intercepted by KO
Kevin Owens tells Seth that if KO beats Big E tonight he gets added to the match at day 1, Seth isn’t happy.
YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME
Edge is back on Monday night Raw
But first we go backstage with Seth confronting Adam pierce about KO being added to the title match at day 1, Adam Pierce denies it to Seth saying Kevin Owens is lying and Seth is happy with that so leaves, Adam asks Sonya can she believe Kevin Owens is lying about this but Sonya thinks it’s a good idea for the match.
Back to Edge for an in ring promo he starts by bigging up Seth saying that he is operating on a different level. He tells no lies.
He then says that there is a bunch of opponents he can “sink his teeth into” AJ styles, KO, Finn Balor, Damien priest, big E, he’s interrupted by music hitting, AWESOME… The Miz is back and he’s brought Maryse with him, cue a video package of him on Dancing with the stars.
He starts by moaning about the fact that Edge got the big return and he didn’t and makes a big deal about his wife returning too. Maryse does a small amount of talking, she didn’t do great, stumbled over her words a lot.
Edge takes the mick out of the Miz finishing 9th and the Miz has a go at the crowd for forgetting to vote for him, edge says that the only reason Miz has come out during Edges promo is to put himself in the picture. Then has some crowd participation on getting them to say Miz sucks
Miz is annoyed that Edge didn’t mention the Miz when listing out opponents he wants to face and asks edge when the last time he held a big championship was…
Edge comes back at edge saying that
“You have people on other shows saying your name for a cheap reaction” and
“You Leave your partner high and dry to get fired”
They square up in the ring and Miz says “NO” denying any potential match tonight.
Edges music plays to close out the segment
Video package of the fire extinguisher incident from last week involving Street Profits and AJ and Omos.
Backstage promo with AJ and Omos and AJ is “blind” Omos leads him off in the right direction as AJ “can’t see”
Street profits are out next, and they want the smoke
Montez is wearing sunglasses mocking AJ and they come down to the ring for a match against the Alpha Academy
Aj and Omos come down to commentary with Omos helping AJ to the table.
The Street Profits vs The Alpha Academy
This was a fairly standard match with nothing out of the ordinary and nothing spectacular until AJ runs to the ring apron to interfere, but Montez fights him away and hits the impressive from the heavens on Chad Gable who is down in the ring for the win.
This wasn’t a bad match in any way, but it seemed a bit shoehorned in, it wasn’t given much time and the pay out that AJ isn’t really blind seems a bit short lived.