The WWE Raw Reaction for 11/16/20 by Kelly Dishnow

Welcome to the WWE Raw Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show. As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth review here.

The Raw intro starts us off for Promo Time with Drew McIntyre. McIntyre hypes the WWE Title match tonight and Survivor Series this Sunday. Randy Orton interrupts on the video screen to proclaim his greatness. Miz and Morrison then show up and go on about Miz’s MITB briefcase. It was a good way to start off to plug the main event and tease a Miz cash-in tonight.

Before the six women tag match we get the Nia Jax Greatest Hits putting Lana through the announce table eight times. Tag match is Asuka, Mandy Rose, and Dana Brooke against Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, and Lana. Baszler started the match off by trying to break Rose’s arm off. Um, aren’t you tag partners for the Survivor Series match on Sunday? Anyway, Rose gets taken to the back so Baszler can try to break Brooke’s arm. Again, aren’t you tag partners on Sunday? Lana winds up tagging herself in and tapping out to the Asuka Lock. After the match, Lana eats the announce desk again for the ninth time. Somewhere, I bet the Spanish Announce Table was breaking out in a cold sweat. The whole point of this was to have Baszler break the arms of two of her Survivor Series teammates and for Lana to go through the announce desk again. The Lana thing lost the novelty a month ago. I get you need to make Baszler a beast but she needs to drop the tag title first.

Speaking of dysfunctional teams, the Raw Men’s Survivor Series is arguing backstage. AJ Styles said he was the captain of the team and we just don’t care. The Men’s Team minus AJ face Retribution later tonight in eight man tag action. I wonder who’s gonna win that one?

Crack reporter Charly Caruso is backstage to ask Dana Brooke how Mandy Rose is doing. Instead, Caruso gets to watch Reckoning, very obviously Mia Yim, smash Brooke’s head into some equipment cases. The Raw Women’s Survivor Series team is falling apart, literally.

A quick Firefly Funhouse segment showing Bray Wyatt getting ready with Alexa Bliss for his match with Miz later, even correctly spelling jackass as M-i-z. Ramblin Rabbit died via dart to the heart while on a dart board. Why? Killing the rabbit isn’t funny anymore.

The Hurt Business is up next for a promo before their Raw Tag Team Title match with The New Day. The Hurt Business turns heel and talks some trash and New Day comes out with the rebuttal. Tag title match is next with Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander taking on The New Day. The match was fantastic with a lot of great action after the commercial break. The match left you on the edge of your seat wondering who would win the titles and face The Street Profits at Survivor Series. The action was back and forth with so many believable near falls by both teams, but in the end, the right team won with The New Day picking up the hard fought victory. A rematch between the two teams is inevitable with a title change possible.

Sheamus is backstage with a memory box for McIntyre. I could dig these two as a tag team.

Retribution cuts a quick promo backstage before their eight man tag match. Retribution had another quality outing as a group and the Raw Team pushed the “We don’t get along” story. Keith Lee does some really freaking amazing things for a man his size. Retribution picked the win up after the tag myself in fest by the Raw Team lead to Mustafa Ali pinning Riddle with the most feared more in all of Sorts Entertainment, the ROLLUP OF DEATH~! for a quality win. The story was decent and Retribution got a quality win over a credible team. Maybe we can just Make Retribution Great Again after all.

Sarah Schreiber is backstage asking Nikki Cross why she was looking for Alexa Bliss. Cross wants to save her friend from The Fiend. Nice goal there Cross but you’re a bit too late to the game.

Cross runs off and Schreiber spots Jeff Hardy and she asks What’s Up? Hardy has a really bad Wanted poster in his hand and the poster is for Elias wanting information on who hit him with the car. If you know anything outside the fact that it was Sheamus driving, operators are standing by at 555-AMEN. Hardy gets in Elias’s face about the poster and tells him their feud must continue because Sheamus is busy with something else right now.

Miz is out with John Morrison to lose his match with Bray Wyatt. Alexa Bliss is out first in her Firefly Funhouse gear. Cross comes out to “save” her and Bliss just attacks Cross. WWE officials separate the two and Bray Wyatt makes his entrance to the stage. He looks disapprovingly at Bliss and Cross before Bliss switches back into her Funhouse persona and they bop down to the ring. As expected, Miz never really had a chance here. Morrison tried to get involved but we get the dreaded low camera angle and Bliss takes him over the barricade into the crash pad. Wyatt finishes Miz with Sister Abigail. After the match is over, Bliss slowly rises up over the barricade, Fiend style, before switching back into the Funhouse persona and walking the barricade to Wyatt in the aisle. Halfway up the ramp, The Fiend appears on the video screen to give Bliss and Wyatt their next set of orders before the screen goes blank. I really like the new Alexa Bliss character. They’ve found a way to actually make her interesting. She’s a phenomenal actress and you can tell she’s having fun with the new gimmick. Hopefully soon, we will find out what The Fiend has over her and where it is going to lead to.

After the announcement that Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke are unable to compete at Survivor Series because of what happened earlier, Charly Caruso is backstage with Don’t Call Me WWE Commissioner Yet Adam Pierce who announces that Rose and Brooke have been replaced by The IIconics 2.0, Lacey Evans and Peyton Royce. Well, it sure wasn’t anywhere near IIconic there, Adam. I think it would have been better with Team Raw at a 5 on 3 or 5 on 2 disadvantage.

After a couple of promos and an Angel Garza The Bachelor audition (he’s not though) Jax and Baszler were complaining about their strategy of taking out their Survivor Series teammates and getting worse ones now, who pop up to talk strategy before quickly leaving. I guess all of that Rusev Crushing has made Lana more durable than most of the women’s roster. I still have her being the sole survivor because why not? This has to lead somewhere, right?

Main event time and McIntyre has a special entrance for this WWE Title match with Randy Orton. Match started off with Orton wanting to run away a couple of times before Not Commish Pierce shows up to make it a no countout, no DQ match. Business has picked up and we shift into second gear. We then get the match we would expect from these two, although with few weapons. It was just a straight-up fight. Great back and forth action with the story being McIntyre just wants to drop Orton with the Claymore. McIntyre finally connects with the Claymore and Orton is down for the 1-2-3 to crown a new WWE champion to close out the show.

Let’s look at tonight’s Highs and Lows.

The Highs

Drew McIntyre finally gets his crowning achievement moment in front of a (virtual) crowd. It was great to see the title change hands on Raw, which is a rare occurrence these days. I expect McIntyre to carry the title through to WrestleMania and perhaps beyond depending on who the challenger is. I’m glad to see him back at the top of the mountain and let’s give him a nice long reign as champion. There’s your future guy right there.

Strong performances in the other matches tonight. The New Day and Hurt Business really delivered and can’t wait for more from them. Retribution got a quality win but fear this may only be short term and not long term backing. Miz did his job tonight and I’m really digging the Harley Quinnesque Alexa Bliss character. I can’t wait to see where it goes nor can I believe I typed that.

The Lows

I get that they wanted to move Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke off the Survivor Series team but it was just really disjointed booking by having Jax and Baszler try to annihilate their teammates days before Survivor Series.

Why must the Jeff Hardy/Elias feud continue????

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Please stay safe and stay healthy. That’s all I’ve got, until next time.