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With the New Years upon us, WWE tried to give us one of the best Raw episodes in recent memory. They succeeded in doing so for most of the show, and only a few segments fell apart.
The night started with one of the greatest matches between Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre inside a steel cage which very well highlighted the show.
A segment worth watching again followed as Triple H came face to face with The Architect Seth Rollins. A battle royal followed to determine the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship which was won by Apollo Crews, but he went on to lose his championship match later on in the show.
The women continued putting on a couple of great performances, which brings their roster at par with the men's. Elias finally resumed his rivalry with Baron Corbin, and the two are set to do battle for the next few episodes of Raw.
Overall a great show to close out the year, this episode had a few things that we learned at the end of it. Take a look at the 5 things we learned from this week's Raw.
#5 Drew McIntyre is transforming into the most ruthless heel
Randy Orton has been widely known as one of the best heels in the business who has done a great job on both Raw and SmackDown whenever given the chance.
Since Randy Orton and Samoa Joe are on SmackDown, Raw needed a heel as ruthless as one of those men. Their prayers have been answered in the form of Drew McIntyre.
Drew McIntyre has shown time and time again since his arrival on Raw that he is a heartless heel who will go to the extends of injuring his opponents to show that he is unmatchable.
He did so against Finn Balor a few times, against Kurt Angle and Braun Strowman who he injured on screen, and once again he did so this week on Raw against Dolph Ziggler inside a steel cage.
There is no doubt that he will get in contention for the Universal Championship very soon, but WWE is doing a good job at not rushing him in and letting him grow even more to make the impact even greater.
#4 The Riott Squad could become the Women's Tag Team Champions
The Riott Squad have competed in countless six-women tag team matches in the past few months. While Ruby is the only member who has gotten a few individual matches recently, Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan have stuck together.
This week was no different as the team of The Riott Squad took on Ember Moon, Sasha Banks, and Bayley in another six-women tag match.
Throughout the match, the commentary team worked hard to put The Riott Squad as the better team in the viewers' minds and put them over constantly. They even went on to claim that the trio could be wearing all the gold after WrestleMania.
This claim is a big one as the commentary team usually works towards putting a wrestler or team over so that the fans are ready when their time comes. The Riott Squad has put up some great performances, they could well be on their way to winning some gold very soon.
#3 Apollo Crews is energetic and deserves a push
Apollo Crews has been doing fairly well since parting ways with Titus Worldwide. The super-athlete has been given some important spots by the creatives to ensure fans don't lose interest in him.
This week was probably one of the highlights of his career as he managed to win a battle royal to determine the number one contender for Dean Ambrose's Intercontinental Championship.
The match for the championship which took place a little over an hour after he won the battle royal wasn't too bad, and Crews was not jobbed out in the process as he put up a fair fight.
These spots will help Crews get further in his career and we could actually see him getting pushed even more into a title reign sometime in the future.
A man of his strength, athleticism, and abilities deserves mid-card matches every week and a push going forward.
#2 AJ Styles and Seth Rollins are running a similar character
Last week on SmackDown we witnessed Vince McMahon coming face to face with AJ Styles and telling him exactly what he wanted out of him. The segment ended with McMahon slapping Styles who flipped and attacked Vince in return.
This week, Seth Rollins walked out on Raw in search for a championship match to reclaim his Intercontinental title. Instead of Dean Ambrose, Triple H walked out to give Rollins a similar talk where he reminded Rollins of his past.
Rollins wasn't too happy with that and responded to The Game by exclaiming "I'll take down your whole damn family if you get in my way."
This was something similar to what Styles got last week on SmackDown, and both men are former champions who recently lost their titles and want to exact revenge. The promo was top notch in both cases and build towards a more aggressive showing by both men on their respective brands in the future.
#1 WWE is building towards Brock Lesnar vs Seth Rollins
Seth Rollins attacked Lesner verbally in a promo just a few weeks ago. He did so again this week in front of Triple H when he claimed that he was delivering classics while Brock Lesnar was in Canada and he wants to earn everything going forward.
This was another direct jab at the Universal Champion who is set to defend his title against Braun Strowman at Royal Rumble.
One of the biggest matches the WWE Universe want to see going forward is between Lesnar and Rollins, and it seems like the WWE is hinting towards just that.
With Roman Reigns out of action recovering, we could see Seth Rollins be the next man in Lesnar's path come to WrestleMania. A match between the two men could prove to be as good as Lesnar's match against AJ Styles at Survivor Series 2017 or against Daniel Bryan at Survivor Series 2018.
