With television ratings dropping and storylines failing to connect with fans, WWE took another shot at re-upping interest in their product… and not so much. Let’s take a look at what went down last night.
The League of Nations Has Arrived
We kick off Raw in the best way possible, with the New Day out in the ring and confetti falling from the skies. They run down the city of Pittsburgh and then Xavier Woods pulls a Terrible Towel out of his pants and gives it to Big E, who is sweating because Big E,
Unfortunately for all of us, they’re really just there to introduce Sheamus who comes out in a suit and immediately gets booed by the crowd for looking so stupid. Sheamus then thanks the Authority and it’s his turn to run down Raw’s host city before GYRATING SHEAMUS ALERT!
People are complaining about Cam Newton but silent about Sheamus’ moves? Ridiculous.
Anyways Sheamus tells everyone to forget Austing 3:16 and remember Sheamus 5:15 because Roman Reigns lost the title in 5:15 and you know what that’s really just terrible all around.
New Day leaves so Sheamus can celebrate in the ring and SUPERMAN PUNCH TO YA FACE!
Roman Reigns shows up out of nowhere and drops the Champ before leaving with the WWE title.
Backstage we see Reigns talking to Dean Ambrose and the Usos when the Authority walks up and demands the title back. Reigns fakes handing it over to Triple H before giving it to Stephanie McMahon and calling Sheamus the ‘Magic Mohawk’ which is not terrible. Trips says why wait? He books the title match for tonight and adds the stipulation that Reigns has to win in under 5:15 or he loses his TLC match because terrible booking.
Backstage we see Dean Ambrose come into Triple H’s office and Trips congratulates him on becoming the #1 contender for the Intercontinental title. He then says if Reigns doesn’t beat Sheamus in 5:15 Ambrose loses his match at TLC too. I SWEAR TO GOD WWE IF YOU TAKE AMBROSE-OWENS AWAY I WILL LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK.
Later, New Day is on commentary and killing it as the Usos and Lucha Dragons fight to determine a #1 contender. Instead of someone winning, the New Day causes a double disqualification and Xavier Woods says they don’t have to defend their titles at TLC which nope. Stephanie comes out and says that the Lucha Dragons have a title match at TLC, and the Usos will be in it too… as long as Roman Reigns beats Sheamus in 5:15 because LOL MORE TERRIBLE BOOKING.
We finally get Sheamus vs. Reigns and the Champ comes out in a ‘Sheamus 5:15’ shirt which is actually kind of amazing.
Sheamus just tries to run the clock to 5:16 and throws Reigns over the announce table at around two minutes which should be the end but NOPE IT’S A REIGNS RESURRECTION!
Reigns attacks Sheamus and rolls him into the ring with under a minute left. The challenger sets up for a Spear but Rusev drags him out of the ring while Alberto Del Rio and King Barrett pull Sheamus out of the ring. This causes a DQ so technically Reigns wins in under 5:15 and AMBROSE-OWENS LIVES!
Sheamus grabs a mic and introduces his new crew, the League of Nations which is a pretty horrible name. Also, Neville, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Cesaro. Just made a better League of Nations in 10 seconds.
So this of course leads to Reigns teaming with Ambrose and the Usos against the League of Nations. Before the match can start, the New Day comes out and announces that the Authority allowed them to join the LoN so it’s now a 7-on-4 handicap match.
Michael Cole puts over the fact that Roman Reigns can’t catch a break because apparently WHO CARES ABOUT HIS THREE TEAMMATES!
Jimmy Uso gets taken to the back with an injury so now it’s 7-on-3 and seriously all the announce team can talk about is the adversity Reigns is facing and COMPLETELY IGNORING THE FACT THAT HE’S ON A TEAM, IN A TAG MATCH.
Reigns gets the hot tag because duh and he destroys everyone for a couple of minutes.
Eventually he gets beat down and we get tag team chaos that results in Ambrose eating a Brogue Kick and getting pinned by Sheamus for the 1-2-3. The show ends with all the bad guys beating up the good guys and the League of Nations standing tall.
Seriously, there is literally only one match and storyline I care about in WWE right now and that’s Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens. And WWE isn’t even bothering to give that a story outside of LOL YOU BETTER HOPE ROMAN WINS. I mean Owens wasn’t even on the show for crying outloud.
Ugh, this is about as bad as WWE has been in years. I really hope they shake things up and realize the fans are sick of the same old wrestlers, GIVE US NEW BLOOD!
Other Results –
Charlotte Flairs It Up – We see the Divas Champ backstage before Becky Lynch pops in and gives her a hug and then says she wants to ask the Authority for a match. Charlotte isn’t a fan but she agrees as long as Ric Flair can come with her ringside. The two have a pretty good match with Ric Flair getting some crowd pops by strutting on the outside. Our finish saw shades of a possible Charlotte heel turn as she faked an injury and Ric hopped on the apron to distract Lynch.
Charlotte gets the roll-up and the win. After, Becky asks her about cheating and Charlotte tells her it’s not cheating, it’s strategy. She then goes on to lecture about how this is the big leagues and not NXT (WWE wishes Raw was like NXT) and they are still friends at the end of it. Then Paige shows up and tells Lynch she’s sorry she lost but at least she still has her friend as sarcastically as possible.
Sasha Banks, Still Bae – First things first, Sasha Banks, swoon.
As for the match, Banks took on Brie Bella while Team B.A.D. heeled it up and beat up Alicia Fox ringside. Eventually, Sasha hit the Bank Statement for the win over Mrs. Daniel Bryan.
So… the Bellas are getting a face turn? OH WOW EVEN MORE TERRIBLE BOOKING.
Wyatts Take a Step Back – So the Wyatt family has gone from feuding with the Undertaker and Kane and looking unstoppable to now feuding with the Dudley Boyz and… is that Tommy Dreamer?
Yup.
It’s Tommy Dreamer.
Woohoo, that’s so exciting.
So at least the Wyatts are getting booked consistently, even if it’s consistently against 50 year old wrestlers way past their primes. The whole point of this was apparently so Bray Wyatt could go through a table and Michael Cole could sell this as some unbelievable development.
Needless to say, my hopes for a decent TLC PPV are diminishing by the minute.
Alberto Del Rio Squashes Goldust – Zeb Colter called Goldust out of date and full of hate and then got punched in the mouth, that’s pretty much the only highlight of this thing. Then Del Rio squashed Goldie, literally and figuratively.
He then locks Goldust in the Cross Armbreaker and Jack Swagger runs out to chase him off. ANOTHER AWESOME FEUD!
Rusev & Lana Return.. Yay. – So WWE decided to put Lana and Rusev back together, AND announce that they’re married, all on MizTV just in case we didn’t hate things enough. Lana came out and said she never went all the way with Dolph and the crowd is awesome because they started chanted ‘Yes, you did!’ and it was great. Rusev says he never went all the way with Summer Rae and I’m already over this. Ryback comes out to save us and the fact that Ryback is a welcome sight should tell you how terrible this is. The two have a match for a whole minute before…
Oh my goodness Lana got hurt ringside! I’VE NEVER SEEN THAT BEFORE.
Ryback wins by count-out.
Ziggler Gets Some Revenge – Oh hey look, another feud that was just on pay-per-view now being redone on Raw for a month straight! Dolph Ziggler takes on Tyler Breeze (who was already in the ring when we came back from break which, COME ON WWE HIS ENTRANCE IS GOLD) in the exact same match that we saw at Survivor Series. Only this time, Ziggler picks up the win with a superkick because more terrible booking.
HBK cringes every time Ziggler wins with one of those half kicks.