5 things that could happen on RAW next week

I’m sorry, but this week’s episode of Monday Night RAW was the worst episode in a very long time. I cannot remember the last time it was so hard to get into a show, the last time it felt like it ran for 6 hours instead of 3, or the last time I just felt like the “powers that be” put in as little effort as humanly possible to make this a good show. I was extremely hyped up for the event, with the excitement of seeing RAW partially emanate from a room, the Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom, that I have seen so many live Ring of Honor events in person. It promised to be a great night with cameo appearances from a ton of legends and former stars, an Intercontinental Title match, the final push for the Royal Rumble PPV and the first appearance of The Undertaker in over 9 months, hopefully shedding some light on his future.

Outside of the opening segment with Stone Cold and the McMahon family, which was amazing, the show was trash. That opening segment was so good and got me even more excited for the show, only for it to get worse and worse as it went by. Let’s get into what I predicted last week.

- A big brawl between all of the women in the Rumble

This did happen for the most part. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but they threw 8 of RAW’s 9 Royal Rumble match entrants in a tag match, which broke down to a brawl on the outside between 6 of them. Then, following the match, Asuka attacked her three teammates and threw them over the top rope. It wasn’t a bad segment, and it did give us some semblance of “every woman for themselves”, but not as much as I expected.

- The Revival get beat up by some legends

Welp. Yeah. I think everybody called this one. In one of the final segments of the evening, DX returned along with Scott Hall and cut a painfully boring promo in front of an upset crowd at the Manhattan Center who paid a lot of money to see almost nothing worth watching. It led to Balor Club confronting but embracing, the legends in a cool moment. Then The Revival lost a 2-minute match to Gallows and Anderson and proceeded to get beat up by all 5 members of DX, Scott Hall, and Finn Balor. At least Finn and his guys were involved, so maybe they can build something off of that, but it effectively makes their promo about being “wrestlers, not sports entertainers” specifically a set-up for getting a beat down by some of the most prolific “sports entertainers” of all time.

- Stephanie McMahon & Triple H confront Braun Strowman

Much like pretty much everything else on this show, Triple H was involved in nothing important, and neither was Stephanie. Triple H was involved in a boring, heatless segment and Stephanie was part of the only good one, but neither mattered and both will be forgotten by next week. It’s especially annoying that they didn’t even bother to address why Stephanie decided to rehire Strowman. Maybe they will explain it in the coming weeks, but it would have been nice for it to at least have been acknowledged in some way.

- Tease of a Finn Balor heel turn

Nah. Again, I’m a fool for thinking that WWE would actually use this incredibly hyped-up show to actually make people want to continue watching their product. I have no idea what rating the show is going to get, but I would be willing to bet that more people watched RAW this week than usual by a decent margin, and WWE refused to capitalize, instead doing a bunch of boring, uninspired cameos and bad matches. Finn got to “Too Sweet” with the first guys who did it in the context of pro wrestling, which was cool, but it’s just another moment that will go unspoken, and thusly forgotten, very quickly.

- The Miz wins the Intercontinental Championship

Like I said last week, this is the one thing that I was 100 percent sure would happen. I was right, of course. Roman may not win the Rumble on Sunday but he will be in the final four and they probably want more people to think he’s going to win, and taking the IC Title off of him now will help that perception. It was an okay match that got very fun down the home stretch with the crowd eventually getting extremely invested. Not nearly as good as the match in which Roman won the belt, but this was the only good match on the show and the only important event as well.

Overall, I went 3 for 5, which is my best performance yet. I think a lot of stuff that happened on this show were givens, but I’ll still take it. Too bad the show was poorly structured and no the least bit exciting, or memorable -- and most importantly, they did almost nothing to hype up the second biggest show of WWE’s year. What might happen next week, during the fallout of the Royal Rumble PPV?

#5 Brock Lesnar is still the champion but doesn’t appear

Brock Lesnar hits the F-5 on Kane

It hasn’t necessarily been the case in recent history, but the conventions used to say that if you stood tall on the final RAW before the PPV, you were sure to lose your match. This week’s RAW ended with Braun Strowman standing tall after destroying Lesnar and putting him through the announcer’s table.

That makes me think that he’s not going to win the title on Sunday. I already thought that, as did most people, I’m sure, but getting such a definitive advantage this week essentially chisels into stone that he won’t walk out of the Royal Rumble with the Universal Championship. Kane will likely be pinned by Brock Lesnar, as he was immediately disposed of within a matter of moments with a single F-5 and then disappeared for the final 5 minutes of the show. He was a complete afterthought.

I expect that Brock will find some way to immobilize Braun and retain the title by pinning Kane. Next week on RAW, Brock is nowhere to be seen, but Braun is NOT happy. He didn’t lose the match, Kane did, and he wants another shot. He will be announced as one of the 6 participants in the Elimination Chamber next month, and the build for that will begin.

I wonder if they will blow off the Kane/Strowman rivalry in the Chamber, or if maybe they will have one last one-on-one match, where the winner gets in the Chamber match and the loser doesn’t. I’d go for that.

#4 The women’s Elimination Chamber match is announced

The winning team celebrates before Asuka attacks

At this point, I’m convinced that WWE is hell-bent on doing as many “first time” and “historic” things that they can for the women because it’s easier than creating any interesting characters for them or writing good stories.

With that in mind, I think that WWE will either go the dumb, insulting route and have Ronda Rousey win the Rumble match, or a woman from SmackDown will win. Alternatively, a woman from RAW could win and announce that she wants to challenge Charlotte, but that’s the least likely option.

So I’m going to say that either Ronda Rousey or Becky Lynch win the Rumble match, so RAW needs to come up with a way to determine the challenger for the Women’s Championship at WrestleMania.

Alternatively, maybe Asuka does end up winning the Rumble and the Chamber match is for Alexa Bliss’ championship, with the winner of that match going into WrestleMania as the RAW Women’s Champion. Either way, there will be an Elimination Chamber match for the women, because WWE can’t help themselves.

#3 Elias does nothing of importance

Elias stands tall after taking Cena out with a guitar to the back

I’m going to be extremely pessimistic because I’m upset and annoyed at how bad RAW was this week and what an immense missed opportunity it was. One of the few shining moments of the show was Elias continuing his masterful performances.

He knows how to control the crowd to get them to do exactly what he wants, and he can play off of them and pull it together if they do anything unexpected. If WWE wants him to be, this guy has the potential to be a gigantic star in the coming years.

Elias got the better of Cena this week after losing to him a couple weeks back. The segment closed with Elias destroying his exploding guitar over Cena’s back. I’m glad that Elias got to get some comeuppance on Cena.

Sadly, I have a feeling that the “blowoff” to this short rivalry will be Cena eliminating Elias from the Royal Rumble match, and Elias going on to do nothing of importance and probably end up in the Andre Battle Royal at WrestleMania.

Oh, on a side note: I'm calling Elias as the number 1 entrant in the Royal Rumble match.

#2 Matt Hardy defeats Bray Wyatt in a rematch

Bray Wyatt was victorious over Matt Hardy on RAW 25

I was thoroughly confused by having an unadvertised Wyatt vs. Hardy match on the show this week. It didn’t make any sense! Why build up to it for weeks and weeks, only to put it on TV in front of a crowd that was already annoyed because they had been given a terrible live experience in the Manhattan Center?

On top of that, why have Bray defeat Hardy in 5 minutes while barely breaking a sweat? That was baffling.

Knowing WWE, after they eliminate each other from the Rumble match this weekend, they will do a rematch immediately, this time with Hardy getting the victory.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them as two entrants in the Elimination Chamber match (along with Braun, Finn, Roman and Cena), and then having some kind of match at WrestleMania. Probably on the kickoff show, too.

#1 Returning to complete status quo

I like Jason Jordan, but will he really do anything other than be annoying next week?

Like I said earlier, I’m feeling very pessimistic after the disappointment of this week’s RAW. That said, WWE did nothing important this week, opting instead to focus on highlighting the past. Again, extra eyes were on the show this week, and chances are that people who watched looked at the massive contrast between the presentation of the current stars and the legends, and decided that today’s wrestlers are just a bunch of nerds who aren’t worth tuning in to see.

So the fallout from the Royal Rumble event will be less than stellar. On top of announcing the women’s Elimination Chamber, I would not be surprised to see the men’s match announced as well, although I guess it’s a given because the next RAW pay-per-view is Elimination Chamber. But will anything actually happen? Will things be different next Monday than they were this Monday? Will something big occur that kicks off an important storyline that will culminate at WrestleMania? Or will WWE continue to tread water and use the least amount of effort possible? I’m expecting the latter. No heel or face turns, no memorable moments, and no big deal confrontations that will build toward WrestleMania.

I would like to note that I really want to be wrong. I want RAW to be awesome and I want to see them kick off the WrestleMania season in a big way. It just doesn't feel like they have it in them.