WWE Raw – December 2, 2019 (Review)

Published by Nicholas Holicki

WWE Raw – December 2, 2019 (Review)
WWE

In my personal timeline, the past three years of Raw can neatly be divided into two categories. There was the pre-Seth Rollins’ heel turn: a largely desolate wasteland, devoid of reason, hope and optimism – especially during the latter stages. And then there was the post-Seth Rollins’ heel turn, which has ushered in a time of prosperity and renewed liberation.

In this era, the grass appears greener, the birds have found a new tune and Raw suddenly casts a decidedly different shadow. Not as the rapidly degenerating husk it was becoming, but as a pillar of wrestling goodness, eager to welcome tired travellers to a warm tavern of joy and excitement. Welcome back, old friend. It’s good to see you again.

Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. It wouldn’t be the first time. I seem recall similar feelings of optimism every time a fresh NXT star was called up to the main roster. Or when Roman Reigns finally defeated Brock Lesnar to end that particular reign of terror… only for a new one to begin months later.

The point is that Raw has a tendency to spin its wheels for long periods. Doing so creates the illusion of forward momentum, without any discernible action needing to be taken. Michael Cole will yell corporate buzzwords relentlessly, as if he’s trying to bypass your ears and fire the words directly into your cranium. But in reality, they mean very little. They’re hollow constructs, designed to crumble as soon as you so much as think about them too hard.

But this feels different. You can call me a fool, but making Seth interesting is the cornerstone of producing a compelling Raw. Rollins is, after all, at the centre of everything that happens on the red brand. WWE even renamed the product in his honour. So when Seth is on his game, then so too is Monday Night Rollins.

Tonight we might find out whether the sequel to last week’s performance could live up to the original. Would Seth use his roast of the Raw locker room to create an even more dangerous villain (a process I like to call ‘The Terminator 2‘ effect). Or would he be unable to recapture the magic of the original, turning the entire spectacle into an exercise in futility. Think Sister Act 2.

As usual, only time would tell. For the love of God, don’t ruin this for me, WWE! Let’s get to the review.

The Best of Raw

Aleister Black Needs to Calm Down

After spending months in purgatory, Aleister Black suddenly finds himself on TV, in a wrestling ring. He faced Tony Nese in what I believe was his third venture out of his ‘broom closet of solitude’ in recent weeks.

Nese put up some resistance but eventually fell victim to perhaps the best Finisher in all of wrestling: the Black Mass.

Buddy Murphy was keeping a keen eye on proceedings backstage. When Caruso confronted him with a microphone, Murphy claimed that Black took himself too seriously and needed to calm down. Buddy offered to be the man to calm Black down, if he wouldn’t do so voluntarily. Truthfully, I hated this promo. Of all the things for people to feud over, their respective temperament isn’t one of the more inspiring options. But the eventual match should nevertheless be outstanding.

Charlotte Almost Overcomes the Odds

Having lost to Asuka in singles competition last week, Charlotte last night faced both her and Kairi Sane in a handicap match.

Before the match, the Kabuki Warriors rattled through a lengthy promo in Japanese. I actually prefer having Asuka and Kairi Sane speak in their native language, but question the decision to have them cut long, unnecessary promos that very few members of the audience will understand. What exactly did a thirty second, pre-fight Japanese promo accomplish? I felt the same about the AOP.

Regardless, I was worried about the possible outcome here. Not only was Flair up against two women, but those women also happened to be the current Tag Team Champions. It would be a travesty if they lost, but certainly not unthinkable given the company’s general attitude towards tag team wrestling.

Thankfully, the match was fairly excellent, as Charlotte was forced to capitalise on every little mistake her opponents made. This introduced a level of urgency to proceedings, as Charlotte desperately locked in various submissions. Eventually she failed to spot a blind tag, meaning that as she locked the Figure-8 on Asuka, the legal woman (Kairi Sane) dropped an Insane Elbow from the top for the win.

The O.C. Runs into ‘The Future’ and ‘The Legend’

After Drew McIntyre easily beat Akira Tozawa, he called out Randy Orton. The two had a tense standoff before The O.C. jumped ‘The Viper’ for his role in helping Rey Mysterio beat AJ Styles for the United States Championship last week. Before long, Mysterio, Humberto Carrillo and Ricochet came to his aid. This set up a six-man tag between those three men and The O.C.

As you’d probably already guessed, the match was excellent. The pace was unrelenting, as people seemed to materialise out of nowhere to hit big moves, alternatively make crucial saves.

The finish was a pulsating hodgepodge of bodies flying all over the place, leaving just Styles and Ricochet in the ring. With both men perched on the second turnbuckle, Ricochet attempted a hurricanrana. But Styles was able to reverse the move into a second rope Styles Clash, to secure the victory.

This was truly an awesome match! During the celebrations, Orton snuck into the ring to lay out Styles with an RKO.

The Worst of Raw

Charley is on the Case

Intrepid reporter Charley Caruso was backstage to interrogate the AOP upon their arrival to the arena. She wanted to know why they had attacked Kevin Owens last week.

Akam and Razar gladly started babbling away in their native tongues. A puzzled Caruso informed them that she speaks neither Albanian nor Punjabi (rather surprising that she was able to identify the languages she supposedly didn’t speak), and requested an answer in English.

In response, Akam simply told Charley she looked lovely. And the two giants strode off. I would’ve much preferred it had AOP simply ignored Caruso and walked right by. These men are meant to be cold-blooded killers, with a laser-focus on their objective. Not Chatty Cathys looking to give interviews.

Seth Apologises

Seth Rollins took to the ring to issue an apology to the Raw roster. He was still clad all in black, looking Fresh. To. Death.

In some ways, the entire show hinged on this segment and the question of whether Seth could build on the spark of last week. It’s a massive disappointment then that Raw instead chose to reverse course entirely.

Seth spoke about how the WWE is his life and the wrestlers in the back were his brothers and sisters. And, like every family, you push one another to be the best you possibly can be. It was that spirit that motivated his actions last week, but he acknowledged that perhaps he had gone too far.

And so Seth apologised to his colleagues, the fans and most importantly, to Kevin Owens (whom he Stomped into the centre of the Earth last week). It was an honest and sincere show of contrition. Owens, however, wasn’t buying it, calling Seth’s apology BS. (Although he didn’t censor himself, because, you know, WWE tries to be edgy every once in a while.)

Then the AOP came out. Great, I thought, at least the talking would end. But then AOP spent another thirty seconds talking. The upshot was they challenged Seth and KO to a tag match.

Owens suspected that Seth would just end up turning on him, so refused to team with Rollins. Personally affronted, Seth left Owens to face the AOP alone. But then, without explanation, the giant duo also walked away. Owens, however, was itching for a fight, so issued an open challenge. And LANA(?) marched out!

What was the point of this needlessly convoluted, overly long segment?

The Tedious Russian

The opening sequence here was borderline insufferable, as Kevin Owens loudly protested Lana’s presence, while the ‘Ravishing Russian’ screamed at him to “let her finish speaking”. It demonstrates an odd lack of self-awareness for WWE to produce a script which calls Lana mind-numbingly boring, yet somehow not understand just how interminably boring she actually is.

Anyway, Lana announced that she had taken out another restraining order and so Rusev wouldn’t be there last night. Sure, whatever. But also, her “sexy boyfriend”, Bobby Lashley, would beat up Kevin Owens.

Out stepped Lashley, for a suitably tedious match with Owens. At least he stayed on brand for this segment.

After a bit of back-and-forth, AOP marched down and attacked KO to cause the DQ. Why didn’t they just do this fifteen minutes earlier, when Owens wanted to fight them two-on-one?

Bobby Lashley’s Legal Problems

After Kevin Owens was dragged away by AOP, presumably never to be seen again, Rusev hopped the barricade to attack Lashley. There were two police officers at ringside, who Lana had brought out specifically to arrest Rusev should he try something like this. They, however, simply looked on while the ‘Bulgarian Brute’ laid in a few good strikes before hightailing it back through the crowd.

While I’m thinking about it, they didn’t lift a finger to prevent Kevin Owens being abducted either! It’s almost as if those two lads weren’t real cops…

Frustrated by the lack of assistance from law enforcement, Bobby Lashley then made the mistake of gently bumping into one of them while making his way back up the ramp. Apparently that’s considered a crime in Nashville and Lashley was arrested on the spot.

Then, in a fit of rage, Lana slapped the other cop and she too was handcuffed. What a cluster this storyline has been. At this point, I find myself missing the simpler days, when Lana just spoke about how much Rusev loved to get in on inside a massive tank.

Andrade’s Streaking

Andrade continued his streak of defeating nameless mid-carders. Along similar lines, he also kept his streak of not having a storyline on Raw intact.

This week Andrade easily dispatched of Eric Young. But none of this serves to cement Andrade as a top-level star on the red brand, where he undeniably belongs.

Another 24/7 Title Change

Even worse, Andrade’s already tenuous victory then became the backdrop to more 24/7 chicanery. R-Truth came face-to-face with some Nascar bloke at ringside who removed his hoodie to reveal a referee’s shirt. With Truth distracted, another Nascar man rolled him up while his buddy counted the three. Apparently anyone in a striped shirt is now automatically considered a WWE official… kind of lessens Jessika Carr’s big move last week.

Regardless, I’m just tired of the never-ending carousel of “celebrities” winning the 24/7 Title. It’s very rarely funny, and only serves to make an entire subgroup of Raw wrestlers looks like complete goofs.

Mean Charley Meets Not-So Mean Seth

Backstage, Charley demanded to know why Seth hadn’t saved Kevin Owens from the beatdown he suffered at the hands of the AOP.

Seth angrily – and totally justifiably – pointed out that he had offered to team with KO at the top of the show, but Owens had declined Rollins’ help. So why would Seth go out of his way to save him later in the show?

Clearly dissatisfied by the response, Caruso then charged that many considered Seth’s apology to start the show insincere. This elicited more anger from Seth. Again, I agree! Rollins appeared genuinely contrite in his apology. The only heel here is Mean Charley… which in itself is severely disappointing.

Rowan is a Protective Pet Owner

For the third week in a row, Erick Rowan brought his hidden pet down to the ring while he beat up an under-carder. This week his victim was No Way Jose and his merry conga line of idiots.

One of the idiots tried to sneak a peek at Rowan’s pet, which made the big man go ballistic. He clobbered some of the fools, before chasing the rest to the back. Rowan then proceeded to decimate Jose.

In gorilla position, Rowan ignored repeated questions about the mystery pet in his cage. This isn’t progression in any sense. We might as well still be in week one of this story.

The More Things Change, the More ‘The Raid’ Stays the Same

The Viking Raiders beat a team of local enhancement talent again this week.

… So we’re back here again then, are we? Is there no-one looking to challenge the Raw Tag Team Champions?

Overall Rating for the Show (From best to worst: RawSome, Cor, AvRAWge, Poor and Rawful)

Forget everything I said in the opening. Nothing’s changed. I hoped a heel Seth would usher in a newer, fresher dawn for the red brand. But, at the end of the day, Raw is still Raw. And Seth is still – depressingly – Seth.

The night started with Rollins offering a sincere, heartfelt apology for disrespecting the roster last week, in the process effectively reversing course on everything that had happened. It’s the definition of an apology: to show contrition and be forgiven for one’s misdeeds. So Rollins isn’t a heel, nor is he interesting. At least not yet. You could argue that his potential alliance with the AOP is slowly simmering. But so does boiled cabbage, and that doesn’t interest me either.

I needed immediacy and impact. Sadly, we got neither on a show that featured as many squashes as it did competitive matches. But the worst segment by far was the lengthy opening, which catalogued Seth’s apology, Kevin Owens’ non-acceptance, a boring Lana promo, a terrible match against Bobby Lashley, an expected run-in and two arrests. It was awful.

This is the point when I remind you that we are less than two weeks away from TLC. Nothing on this bland episode of Raw framed that pay-per-view any clearer. And so, by the grace of the main event and that Charlotte match alone, this week’s Raw was Poor.

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