5 things that could happen on RAW next week

WWE likes to pride itself on being unpredictable and throwing its fans for a loop with many twists and turns in their stories throughout each continuing week of television. It also often finds itself in a pattern in which if something is being telegraphed to happen, it will, even if it’s the worst move to make.

RAW is currently in a bit of a holding period, as we are just now closing November and there won’t be another pay-per-view event featuring their Superstars until late January’s Royal Rumble, which is an entire two months away.

With that said, I’m here to look at each episode of Monday Night RAW to consider, based on what happened this week, the twists and turns (or lack thereof) that we might be in for next Monday night.

This week’s episode of RAW wasn’t very riveting, but a few noteworthy occurrences did take place, so let’s look at what may be in store for the future.

#5 Matt Hardy challenges Roman Reigns

On this week’s episode of RAW, Matt Hardy squared off with Bray Wyatt and put up a decent effort in a short match that saw him come up on the losing end. Ever since his brother Jeff went down with an injury, Matt has been lost as a singles competitor, losing more often than he wins and generally finding himself in a state of painful purgatory.

Rumours have continued stating that WWE is closer than ever, or have already secured the rights to start using the “broken” character that Matt created while he and Jeff were wrestling for Impact.

This week after his loss to Wyatt, Matt sat in the corner, dejected, and seemed to ignore the crowd’s cheers and chanting of his name. Instead, he sat still with a glassy look in his eyes, then started to wave his arm in the now famous “delete” motion.

That’s not abnormal for Matt, as he has been doing it since the return of the Hardy Boyz back in April. But this time instead of just doing it once and letting the crowd continue, he waved his arm and shouted “Delete! Delete!” over and over again. It was the first time he did it more than two consecutive times since his return.

Michael Cole claimed that Matt may be having some sort of “breakdown” -- you know, something that might leave a person “broken”, and they cut to commercial.

With Roman Reigns as the new Intercontinental Champion priding himself on consistently defending the title, it would not be surprising to see Matt Hardy take on the open challenge next week in a bid to try to right his course while he still can. He will fail, surely, and losing a high profile, high stakes match is sure to be a much bigger push toward the broken side than a loss in a simple random singles match.

#4 No follow-up on Elias’ big match

elias elbow drop — Elias Drops An Elbow On Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns made his first Intercontinental Title defence this week, accepting the challenge of Elias. The guitar-playing singer full of ruthless aggression has shown nothing but promise since his RAW debut earlier this year.

He’s had some good matches, is consistently entertaining, and the crowd absolutely loves to boo him. His match with Reigns on Monday was pretty good, as it started off extremely slow and boring but picked up in the final 5-6 minutes and ended well.

Nothing special, but it was a match that should be a very important moment in Elias’ young career. It was by far his biggest match to date, and he took a former multi-time World Champion to his very limit. You would expect, after such a great showing, WWE would follow up on it next week and capitalise on the momentum that he has, even in the loss.

That’s doubtful. If history tells us anything, the chance of anything truly meaningful happening for Elias between now and the Royal Rumble is slim. He will probably end up retaining the services of the Miztourage while the “A-Lister” is out making his latest movie, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Miz and Elias either team up or feud with each other upon the Awesome One’s return.

In the meantime, nada. Next week I anticipate that Elias will probably be involved in a meaningless singles match that sees him sing a song, like always, and pick up a victory over Goldust or Heath Slater in a segment that everybody will forget by the end of the show.

#3 Samoa Joe gets punished but attacks Reigns again

By attacking Roman Reigns from behind on RAW, Samoa Joe made it clear that Reigns is back on his hit list and that he is gunning for the Intercontinental Championship. Usually, General Manager Kurt Angle likes to have the wrestlers settle it in the ring, but he won’t reward Joe with a title shot for his bad behaviour.

Joe calls Reigns out to challenge for the title, but Kurt Angle shows up instead and says that Roman will indeed be defending his title, but not against Joe, who is banned from the building due to his actions on the previous week’s episode.

Matt Hardy is putting on a valiant effort against Reigns in his shot at the title, but Samoa Joe interferes in the match when he comes through the crowd and attacks Roman from behind again, causing a disqualification. He also takes out Matt Hardy for good measure, and Joe and Reigns brawl to the back. This leaves Hardy alone in the ring for the second week in a row, with nothing to show for his efforts.

#2 Jason Jordan calls out Finn Balor

I have no idea what exactly WWE is doing with Finn Balor, but it’s clear that they have no direction for him right now and he’s being used to further the stories of other wrestlers instead of being involved in something for himself. With that in mind, I do know what they are doing with Jason Jordan.

He’s slowly turning heel, as he is obviously milking his mild knee injury and using it as an excuse to try to get out of bad situations while trying to make himself look valiant by fighting through the pain, claiming his knee is 100% when it might not be. And even if it is perfect, he’s still being cowardly.

It’s all WWE’s way to continue the rift between him and Kurt Angle, to show that Jordan is a slimeball who will take shortcuts, and eventually will lead to a full-on heel turn. It’s not clear how it will happen, but that the clear path.

This week, Jordan called out Kane but when the match started getting too difficult, he decided that his knee was hurt and that he wasn’t able to continue. He feigned trying to beat the 10-count but obviously intentionally failed to get back into the ring on time. It didn’t help him avoid taking a beatdown from Kane (which made no sense, but whatever), but that assault from Kane led to Finn Balor coming to the ring to make the save.

JJ will take offence to that, saying that he doesn’t need Finn Balor to fight his battle and that he would have been just fine out there on his own. Kurt will give him a match with Finn, and it wouldn’t shock me if he faked a knee injury to distract Balor and the referee in order to get a cheap victory.

#1 The Authors of Pain interfere in the Tag Title match

After their gruelling match at NXT Takeover: WarGames, the Authors of Pain don’t really have much left to do in NXT. They might not be fully ready for the main roster, but that hasn’t stopped WWE from bringing up much less talented wrestlers, so it isn’t much of an issue.

Instead of another Tag Title change or a successful defence for The Bar over Rollins & Ambrose, the match ends in a No Contest when Paul Ellering leads Akam and Rezar to the ring to take out both tag teams.

I don’t think WWE is going to have Sheamus and Cesaro successfully retain their titles over The Shield, but I also don’t think there’s another title change on the horizon quite yet. Enter the AOP. The add some new life to the RAW tag team division and creates the possibility for a great three-team rivalry and a lot of really good matches.

I don’t know if they would be able to hold off on the triple threat tag match all the way until the Royal Rumble, but they might use it as a big match for the Christmas night episode. We’ll find out, but I do fully expect to see the Authors of Pain show up next week to create chaos.