WrestleTalk Roundtable – WWE Raw – October 22, 2018

What was the worst part of last night’s episode?

Eric Stites

Although I loved Dean’s heel turn, the one thing I really didn’t understand was why he and Seth won the titles if Dean was just going to turn afterwards. It makes no sense to me. What do they do with the titles now that he turned? Can Seth really defend them with a guy that viciously attacked him? I just don’t get it.

Marie Benavides Eckmann

Since Evolution is this Sunday, I came into Raw having high expectations for the women’s matches. Unfortunately, the one that showed the most promise ended up being the biggest stumble today and that was the four way women’s match.

Nia Jax looked confused the whole time; Dana Brooke is just boring (they clearly haven’t figured out what to do with her yet); Tamina, who seemed to have a huge break out and return from injury last week, ended up looking weak; and Ember Moon was amazing as usual.

However, for a match that hosted some of the women that are expected to compete in the Battle Royale this weekend, I ended up unsatisfied and annoyed with how quickly the match ended. If this is a preview of the Battle Royale, I don’t want to watch it anymore.

THIS SUNDAY: A HUGE #BattleRoyal will determine a future #WomensChampionship challenger at #WWEEvolution! #RAW pic.twitter.com/POR7x6laIH

— WWE (@WWE) October 23, 2018

JP Wood

The expression on Roman’s face was the same look we’ve seen on guys like Daniel Bryan and Edge on their way down to the ring to tell their fans that they were leaving. The former two, thankfully, have a chance to return. Edge was out for good, and he knew it.

This was the worst moment of the night because we watched a man we all feel like we know walk away from his passion (boo or cheer him, the guy loves the business). I’m not ashamed to say that I was sobbing big manly anime-sized tears while I watched.

This could have gone down poorly with the crowd. As soon as people started to sense his sincerity, you could hear the noise in the arena fade away. At that moment, we saw real humanity on display from everyone involved. The performer in the ring and 10,000 or so people just hoping he’ll be okay.

“Thank you Roman” chants broke out.

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Dylan Kapisky

Is Evolution here, yet? I’m not asking because I’m excited, but because it will hopefully mark the end of WWE forcing women’s storylines that don’t exist.

The women’s four-way match was one of those storylines. In the exact opposite of what the company is touting by holding the pay-per-view (or whatever they call them now), four female wrestlers were given hardly a minute of screen time for a fatal four-way match. The purpose? To promote the Evolution “let’s get all the women on the card” Battle Royal.

Instead, it exposed just how little care WWE has put into the show. While matches like Ronda vs. Nikki, and the six-woman tag received proper screen time, and had weeks of development behind them on Raw, this combination of four were forced into a thinly-veiled attempt at a storyline last week, and it did not stick. If there was ever an example of a 3rd hour match, this was it.

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