5 things that could happen on RAW next week

This week’s very special Christmas episode of Monday Night RAW was a decently entertaining show. There wasn’t anything actively bad, which is usually the case these days - there was some good stuff, some okay stuff, and some stuff that you just don’t understand. Finn Balor is still just beating up nerds for no reason and Kane is dominating a pair of guys who WWE needs to rebuild in order to keep the shamble of their tag team division alive.

Last week, I postulated a number of things that I expected would happen on Christmas RAW Christmas. Let’s look at them.

- John Cena announces entry in the Royal Rumble match

Color me surprised. I fully expected him to throw his hat into the ring, but maybe he won’t be showing up this year. He could still be a surprise entrant, but we’ll see how that turns out. His segment with Elias was a lot of fun and the match was good, but I wish it didn’t take him 10 seconds to win a match after he spent 20 minutes getting destroyed. I’ll always be bothered by Cena doing that.

- Enzo Amore retains the Cruiserweight Championship

This one didn’t happen because they decided against having the title match on this week’s show. After Dean Ambrose got put on the shelf and WWE decided to throw the tag belts on Jason Jordan and Seth Rollins, they may not have wanted to have another title change hands on the same show. The match will now happen next week, and I wonder if Cedric Alexander will be the new champion.

- The Revival defeat Slater & Rhyno in a rematch

Well, they did have Rhyno give Slater some tough love in having him put into a match with Kane. I guess that counts as storyline progression for them? The Revival, only one week after making their surprise return, were nowhere to be seen. What gives?

- Finn Balor and Hideo Itami have no interaction at all

As expected, Itami went on to strictly cruiserweight action. Finn, also as expected, continued spinning his wheels as he defeated Curt Hawkins this week. At least they didn’t make Hawkins look like a threat the way they did with Dallas and Axel. That was ridiculous.

- The Shield, The Bar, Joe, and Jordan stay in their own little bubble

Indeed, as The Bar lost the tag titles to Jordan and Rollins and Samoa Joe defeated Roman Reigns by DQ in a match for the IC Title before getting absolutely wrecked by the champion after the match. Both matches were good and the story is finally moving forward a little bit, so I can’t complain too much.

Overall, I went a clean 2 for 5. Finn and Itami did exactly as I expected (although there was no Santa hat for Finn) and the superfriends all kept together in their clique.

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#5 Drew Gulak costs Enzo Amore the Cruiserweight Championship

Cedric Alexander holds Enzo Amore at the end of a Singapore candy cane

The CW Title match that was supposed to happen on Christmas will instead now take place on New Year’s Day. I postulated that maybe this match was bumped back a week because WWE didn’t want two different title switches on the same show, and once they decided to give Rollins and Jordan the Tag Titles, they decided to wait a week to pull the trigger on Alexander.

Whether or not Alexander gets the victory and the title on the next episode of RAW, I still hold strong to my expectation that he will be the next Cruiserweight Champion. I do believe that it will happen on the first day of the year, the first RAW of the year, and I think Drew Gulak will “accidentally” play a small role in it.

#4 Jordan and Rollins defend against Joe and Cesaro

Cesaro holds Seth Rollins in a rear chinlock

With rumours continuing to swirl that Sheamus may be on his last legs, or at least maybe taking a break for a while before coming back for the last run, this week’s episode saw him and Cesaro lose the tag titles could have been a way to write him off TV for a little while.

In keeping with the tradition of the past 5 months, however, the bubble will not be broken and the new RAW Tag Team Champions will make their first defense against another makeshift team, Samoa Joe and Cesaro. It’s all a big holding pattern until the Royal Rumble anyway. None of this really matters much.

#3 Matt Hardy debuts his new music and gets the best of Bray again

Matt Hardy laughs at Bray Wyatt after a sneak attack

This week, we saw Matt Hardy appear from the darkness to attack Bray Wyatt from behind as he was entering the ring for what we assume was going to be a match. It was a very brief encounter with limited physicality, and Matt barely missed the Twist of Fate. Next week the opposite will occur, almost. Matt Hardy will make his way down to the ring with his brand new theme music and Bray will rise from the shadows to attack, but Matt will fight him off and stand with his head held high once again.

I hope they hold off on a match between them for a while. WrestleMania would be much better than the Royal Rumble. They should both just be in that match. I expect that’s what will happen.

#2 Finn Balor defeats Heath Slater

Finn Balor celebrates another victory on RAW

The next chapter in both of these sad stories will intersect next week on RAW. Rhyno will either come out with Slater and force him to make an open challenge, or he will lead him out and tell him he has a really tough opponent that can help make him a man.

Either way, it will be Finn Balor, and nothing will get accomplished by anyone. It will be mildly entertaining at best and will serve only to keep Balor on TV and to continue the go-nowhere story that they are beginning, but surely won’t finish, with Slater and Rhyno.

#1 The New Year doesn’t start off with a bang

This is sort of what it feels like watching RAW recently

For some reason, I get the feeling that nothing important is really going to happen on RAW next week. Just like nothing important has really happened at all since Survivor Series. Yeah, Reigns won the IC Title, but it’s just because Miz went to film a movie and they wanted to be able to call Roman a “grand slam champion”. It’s a hollow title run that will be over sooner rather than later and is being wasted over his shoulder.

Sure, the Tag Titles changed hands this week, but it’s just a fluke and a means to an end. The tag division is a complete mess and I don’t know if WWE has any idea what the heck they’re doing with it right now, so they’re just flinging stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

The CW Title might change hands, but that title hardly holds any importance. It’s two steps above meaningless. Maybe a January 1st win from Alexander can begin turning around the division, but that remains to be seen.

In the end, next week will again be just another show. Not much will be truly different than it was before the show began. It’s frustrating to watch as a fan of long-term, well-planned storylines, but as long as they have some good matches I won’t gripe too much.