The WWE Raw Reaction for 11/15/21
Welcome to the Raw Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show in Indianapolis.
As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth report here.
We kick things off with a replay of what happened between Big E and Kevin Owens to lead us into Promo Time with Big E. Before addressing Owens, Big E warns Roman Reigns that he is coming from him at Survivor Series because he messed up. Big E then calls Owens out and here he comes. Owens tells Big E that the heel turn was all his fault as is everything that he is going to do. Owens leaves so the Usos can jump Big E. The cameraman breaks into a seizure while Big E gets beat down. Riddle comes out to make the save for both Big E and the cameraman. Sonya Deville shows up and tells us she’s gotten permission from Teddy Long to book the tag match next, playas.
Seth Rollins comes out to commentary. Big E eventually threw Jimmy into Rollins’s chair and decked Rollins. Rollins jumped into the ring for the DQ. Then, I hear voices in my head and they talk to me about six man tags. Here’s Randy Orton to RKO to Jey for his troubles.
We return from break and join the six-man tag match, already in progress. But you already knew that. Now that the actual match is underway, it is pretty good. It advances the two running stories well. I was surprised that Rollins picked up the win for his team over Riddle. I figured he was put in the match to eat the pin. After the match, Jey Uso is intercepted and eats another RKO, which looked rather cool. Big E picked up Jey and told him to tell “daddy” that the message was received and drops Jey with a Big Ending to close the opener. I’m going to pencil in a Big E appearance on Friday.
Our next bout has Bianca Belair taking on Tamina. The match was an acceptable Tamina match. Tamina bumped well and Belair’s power is crazy by lifting Tamina up and hitting a KOD on her. The match outcome was never in doubt though.
Promo Time with Becky Lynch is up next. Lynch absolutely torches Charlotte Flair ahead of their Survivor Series match. Lynch touched on their real life history and how Lynch had to fight for everything that she’s earned. Lynch is clearly the face going into the Survivor Series bout. Their match should be great.
Liv Morgan shows up to turn Lynch back heel. Morgan was being slow and deliberate with her promo on Lynch. Lynch told Morgan that she’ll never match up to her and Morgan counters the Manhandle Slam attempt, leaving Morgan in the ring with the Raw Women’s Championship. Morgan holds the title high to the delight of the crowd before giving it back to Lynch. That was two absolutely fantastic promos from Lynch.
The Street Profits take on The Alpha Academy next. The match was really good. It is great to see Chad Gable featured more recently. I’m hoping that this leads Alpha Academy to a tag title run in the very near future. Montez Ford picked up the win for his team after rolling through a Gable cross body block attempt. Perhaps this will be a feud in the future once RK-Bro splits. That split feels like it is coming real soon and one of these two teams will pick the titles up from them.
Nikki A.S.H. takes on Queen Zelina Vega in a match nobody really cared about, which is a shame. Both are talented and could have used more than three minutes to show off what they can do in the ring. Vega picked up the win in this throwaway match.
Speaking of throwaway matches, Carmella and Rhea Ripley squared off because why not? Since Vega won the first match, you probably know how this one is going to go. It took Ripley longer than it should have to wipe out Carmella, much to the chagrin of Corey Graves. At least he wasn’t that obnoxious this week.
Adam Pearce warned Big E to not get Brock Lesnar’d during the next match between Finn Balor and Kevin Owens. The match was great as you would expect from these two who have history with one another. I know Owens is crazy, but I don’t think he should be doing some of these bumps anymore. Owens dropped Balor with the stunner to get back on the winning track. I really do think Owens is staying in WWE and this main event heel push is part of it.
We needed to fill a little bit of time so AJ Styles and Omos came out to destroy Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode in a tag match. If you’ve seen one Omos beating, you’ve seen them all.
Main event time has Rey Mysterio taking on Bobby Lashley. As you would expect, Rey lasted longer than Dominik did last week but the outcome was still the same. Lashley put Rey to sleep with the Hurt Lock as Dominik watched from ringside. After the match, Adam Pearce pulls Rey off the Survivor Series team and replaces him with Austin Theory after Theory ran down to take Dominik out. So much for having a team full of former WWE Champions. This also completes Pearce’s heel turn because Deville’s on Smackdown is going oh so well there.
Let’s take a look at tonight’s highs and lows.
The Highs
Both of Becky Lynch’s promos tonight were simply phenomenal. She took down Flair as face then switched to a heel to put down Morgan. If you only watch one thing on Raw, this better be it. Lynch is going to make Morgan and Belair each look like a million bucks to become the next huge stars. Woman’s Revolution 2.0 anyone?
Solid in-ring action with the six-man tag and Balor/Owens tonight. Both matches are worth checking out.
The Lows
It looks like we really are going to go through with the Adam Pearce heel turn. We did find out on NXT tonight that Von Wagner will be his bodyguard. Oh goodie. It’s going to suck, but let’s hope it doesn’t suck as bad as the Sonya Deville heel turn on Smackdown. Why can’t we just not have authority figures?
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That’s all I’ve got, until next time.