WWE Monday Night RAW Best and Worse Moments
A Disappointing Return for Brock Lesnar
During last week's show, the WWE announced that Brock Lesnar would be making his first appearance on Monday Night RAW since his lost to Goldberg at last year's Survivor Series pay per view and of course I was super excited. The beast will be a part of this year's huge Royal Rumble match alongside the likes of Seth Rollins, the Undertaker, and of course, Goldberg and his involvement will, of course, be a huge part of the match. The opening to this week's Monday night RAW saw Roman Reigns kick things off with an expected in-ring promo where he spoke about losing the Unite States Championship to Chris Jericho last week and the way he did so. Commenting on the fact that Jericho couldn't do it alone I didn't really feel that Reigns really gave a crap. Maybe this is because I struggle to get into the first five minutes of every episode of Monday Night RAW because it's always so predictable but I didn't get any passion coming from Reigns and it felt as though he only really wanted to talk about his WWE Universal title match, which does make sense, we only have two weeks until the pay per view and we need to focus on these two and building something more between him and Owens but I just wasn't a fan of the promo, however, saying that it was one of hi stronger pieces of mic work we have seen so props to him. Of course, as the opening progressed the usual names started to make an appearance expected. It wasn't long before Reigns was joined by the likes of Chris Jericho, seperrateKevin Owens, Seth Rollins and Bruan strowman with the focus point being the Royal Rumble match. Heyman did have some involvement and I did like how they kept some time between Heyman's apperance and Lesnar's shock arrival in the opening. I didn't see it coming with a part of me expecting to hear from Lesseparatepart of the show later on but it was nice to genuinely be surprised and to find myself hooked on the TV once again. The excitement however, didn't last at all and I was actually really disappointed with what we saw from Brock. After his humiliating loss to Goldberg, I wanted to see an even more barbaric and intense version of Lesnar and we just didn't get that. Yes, he did take out every man in sight from Roman Reigns to Sami Zayn but I think most of us were expecting just a lot more and what we got didn't feel good enough at all. The one thing I did like from this part of the show is what they did with Strowman. The staredown between him and Lesnar was goo but the fact they didn't actually collide was great. They protected Strowman well here and the whole moment was fun to watch and worked well for both men. In fact, it was actually a really goo night for Strowman, something we will talk about later on in the show.Nia Jax Finally Makes A Statment
I've been banging on about how the WWE have been booking Nia Jax for week and finally I can sit here and actually comment on something she did positively. During the show we got to see a clip of Nia attacking Sasha Banks before the show but instead of it being the typical beat down we instead saw Sasha go through some in ring drills to see if her knee was recovering and if she was ready for full on in-ring action and it was then that Nia came out and attacked her. I liked how this was filmed. There wasn't a big camera crew, it looked realistic, the shot was made from the crowd and the men and women surrounding the ring worked in making it feel very realistic. This was something a little more different and again it just worked. I do like seeing them doing and trying out something different especially in the women's divison. I'm still not completely invested in this storyline but what we saw last night did help and I did gain more of an interest and I strongly believe that there is a great deal of potential here. I also now cannot wait to here from Sasha Banks and get a reaction from her.
Are Things Looking up For the Cruiserweight Division?
In last week's RAW Highlights post I spoke about the Cruiserweight division in great depth mentioning the fact that I felt as though two thousand and seventeen could be a really good year for them if the WWE start making changes and really focus on these guys. This week things did look to be improving for the Cruiserweights with three segments that all worked really well and that I found myself genuinely interested in. The first we saw of them came from Jack Gallagher and Ariya Daivari with Daivari going one on one with Lince Dorado and Gallager on commentary. The focus here actually wasn't actually on the match, the action didn't grab my attention at all. I've mentioned before that I struggle to get invested in the matches provided by the division because of short and weak they are. The matches are simply focused on a couple of spots here in there and a quick ending and it just doesn't grab my attention at all and is one of the key problems they have. What did work last night, however, was what they did in developing the story between Daivari and Gallagher. This is a story that has been growing for weeks now and tonight following Smackdown LIVE we will see the pair collide in an "I forfeit" match, something I actually do have a great interest in. Gallagher is one of the most over men in the division at the moment and the work between these two has been entertaining, to say the least, and I'm hoping that they are given enough time tonight to put on a strong, standout match because they do deserve it and I do think they can put on a very entertaining match. Later on in the night we got to see some work between Cedric Alexander and Brian Kenrick. Again, I have really been enjoying the work between Cedric, Noam Dar, and Alicia Fox and what we got last night was actually one of the standouts for me. The match itself was hard to focus on because of Foxy at ringside but the action was good, really good. We had two extremely talented and very different superstars and there were a number of moments throughout the match that grabbed my attention especially that ending. I love that Cedric got the win, I liked the little moment between him and Alicia after the match and what was great was seeing how invested the crowd were in what was going on. It was a slow start but Cedric really did get the fans interested in the action and invested in the storyline they were trying to tell. They still have a long way to go but it was great actually seeing the fans interested in what was going on. The last we saw of the Cruiserweights came from current champ Rich Swann, Tony Neese and Neville. We know that Neville and Swann will collide at the Royal Rumble for the title and I do believe that they will have a great match. Seeing more tension between them was good last night and I have a lot of respect for Neville for travelling to the UK, working a brilliant match and then coming back and working the following night on RAW. I liked the little tension we had between him and Tony and I loved that the commentary team focused on how much the two look alike. I'm hoping to see more of Neese in the future because he clearly does have a lot of potential.First WWE Hall of Fame Announcement Of 2017
This is going to be a much shorter paragraph because I am going to be writing a full post on this topic but last night it was announced that former champion Kurt Angle will be the first name inducted into the two thousand and seventeen Hall of Fame and what a well-deserved spot. I mentioned on twitter last night that I have always always always been a huge fan of Kurt Angle. I grew up admiring his work and he's always been someone I have enjoyed watching and that is something that has continue on right up to this point. I have and always will enjoy anything and everything Kurt has to offer and I'm so so happy that he is going into the Hall of Fame this year, so well deserved. I am still hoping that we get more work for him in the WWE this year whether it be involvement in the Royal Rumble or maybe even a general manager role or of course work with American Alpha, something you guys know I really want to see but this is going to be something I talk about more here on my blog in the coming weeks.
So Close, Yet so Far Away
One of the standout moments last night was the matchup between Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows and Sheamus and Cesaro for the RAW tag team championships. I will admit that at first, I wasn't looking forward to this match at all. I didn't see how it could help Anderson and Gallows get to the place they need to be at because I just knew we were not going to see the titles change hands on the
show last night. However, the match was just done so so well. I started out not really interested in the action. I was a little tired early into the show and I found it hard to get invested in the action but that did change massively as the match went on. I found myself getting more and more interested in the match. The action became more unpredictable, the spots where stronger and the storytelling was better. This was no match of the year style bout but it was sure and entertaining match that I was definitely interested in. I di really like the finish of this match. I didn't see them going down this root at all but it was different and it id work a heck of a lot. I'm always sitting here and complaining about the work from the tag team division and while I still do have a lot of issues mainly because of the fact the storylines are always weak and always very similar and the matches recently haven't been the best but if they can follow what we have seen from NXT then we could easily see things turn around massively. As I said, I'm glad they decided to do something a little differently last night and I definitely worked. We saw Anderson and Gallows get the pin and it did look as though new champions were going to be crowned, however, following Sheamus accidently hitting the referee the decision was changed and Anderson and Gallows won by disqualification instead. It does mean we get to see more from this little growing feud and I am interested in seeing if in the end we do see new champs in Anderson and Gallows.
Honestly, I have mixed opinions of this week's Monday Night RAW, I felt as though we had some strong moments and the parts I liked I really liked and the parts I didn't like just bored me, I did enjoy this weeks show much more than I did last week and it will be interesting seeing what Smackdown LIVE brings to the table this week. As always you can let me know what you thought of the show by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me over at @TezangiVictoria.
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