This Week in Raw and Smackdown Live For the Week of 12/17/2018

There's a lot to dig into this week on the two "big" shows, so let's kick into it with Raw.

So having Vince McMahon come to Raw along with Stephanie, HHH, and Shane come out and make the declaration that the WWE Universe are the real "authority" and they're going to have new stars, fresher matchups, and better content, this would all signal a big shift for the product going forward.

But did it?

Put simply: not really, no. At least, definitely not on Raw.

What did we get this week? An opening where Baron Corbin again sits in as the Authority Figure we are, in kayfabe, blaming for all the shitty booking and abysmal storylines on Raw for the last several weeks and again, Corbin gets the living shit beat out of him by those he has "wronged" on Raw, like Gable and Roode, Apollo Crews, Heath Slater and Kurt Angle.

Was this fun? Yes. It was a fun bit of comeuppance to have someone change the rules on Corbin like he did while he was in charge. Did it do anything for the GM spot? I don't think so. I don't remember Angle being reinstated, but that shows you how much I was paying attention. Have we seen this match before? Yes, just 24 hours previously. Is this indicative of a shift in the balance of power from Vince and Co. to the fans, who have just been declared the "new" authority? No.

Then we get Finn in another "rivalry that will lead nowhere" match that he gets sooo fucking often on Raw, and that was a continuation of the backstage segment from TLC where Dolph sent Finn over some equipment boxes because he wasn't appreciative of Dolph's help. So they lock up and have a very standard match for both of them... and then Drew comes out and causes a DQ that leads to a confrontation that has Drew leveling them both. Again, this is the same thing we've seen for a long, long time with Finn. He either has matches that have no consequence, or if they do, they lead nowhere for him.

Then there's Dean calling out Seth with his gas-masked acolytes flanking the ring. He issues an open challenge, and out comes the surprise guest on last week's NXT, Prince Pretty himself to accept the challenge. All in all, it's a decent match... but wait? Why is one of Dean's acolytes attacking him? Gasp, it's Seth in disguise!! Actually, this worked for me because A: it's Tyler getting two title shots on two different shows in less than a week (I know NXT is pre-taped, but still...), and that's cool, and it's trying to keep things a little less complicated. This is arguably the biggest problem with most WWE main roster booking: they're making things SO complicated that the reasons and the motivations of these characters end up getting lost in the shuffle. Hey, at least this match up was fresh.

Then we have the 4-way between AOP (is it really so fucking hard to call them Authors of Pain, Vince??), Lucha House Party, The B-Team and The Revival for the #1 Contender to the Raw Tag Champs of Roode and Gable. And I officially am bummed out by the lucha trio of Gran Metalik, Lince Dorado and Kalisto; they're being booked as babyfaces but they have a numbers advantage in all of their matches so it reeks of heel-ish behavior. But hey, at least The Revival came out on top! They won't do shit with it, but at least they had one glorious moment in the sun.

And then we get Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush stealing Elias's gimmick by being out on the stage and Lashley is holding the broken guitar he busted on Elias's back at TLC and he does his ass-out pose, and then Elias is introduced and breaks his guitar over Lashley's back. So far, not reinventing the wheel here, Vince.

Then Ronda came out and said she's ready for any and all comers, and cut to backstage where there are eight female competitors (strangely Tamina and Nia are absent) champing at the bit to get at Ronda. Steph then pronounces that she's not going to play favorites (isn't Alexa in charge of the Women's roster or did she go down with Corbin's ship?) and announces a gauntlet match, and it becomes relatively clear early on who Raw is betting their money on as far as a placeholder contender for Ronda because they start with Bayley and Alicia Faaaaaaaaaawwwwkkksss (I kinda miss Noam Dar's pronunciation of her name). Alicia is going to get eliminated early and Bayley isn't going to last long. So no matter who gets brought out or in what order, the winner was going to be Natalya. Nattie was clearly set as a "we can still be friends" contender for the pre-taped Xmas eve show. I don't know why Sasha was not sent in earlier instead of Nattie, because that's the match we want to see in the not-too-distant future, but there's this big rumor on all the dirt sheets that Charlotte is going to face Ronda at the Rumble, which they can figure out how to book properly if they care to do it.

Now, we go to Smackdown, a consistently better show from pretty much every level than Raw.

It starts with Becky, as all episodes of Smackdown should for the foreseeable future, who is almost immediately joined by Charlotte, and they argue about who should have won the Women's title match. Then out comes Asuka to get her newly minted championship belt anointed by the fans, and she does, understandably... but then comes Mr. McMahon himself to break up the heated exchange between these women (because we all know that when it comes to women fighting amongst themselves, Vince Fucking McMahon is totally going to be the voice of reason...), and Asuka gets a title match, but no rematch for either Becky or Charlotte, because either of them losing one-on-one is going to make both of them look worse for wear, and for once, Vince shows some restraint in that respect. So he sends out Naomi instead. And they have a fun match. Naomi is always an afterthought in the Women's division and she really shouldn't be.

Again, this is not a major shift in direction, but like most things on Smackdown, it's at least feeling a little fresher than the "Flagship" show. But something weird happened within the opening as well, and that was the removal of Paige as GM of Smackdown. Now it sounds weird that they would get Paige out the door, particularly with how over she is as GM, but I'm thinking that she's probably stepping down temporarily because she'll be spending some time promoting Fighting With My Family, which is coming out on Valentine's Day (probably how myself and my wife will be spending that day). This is a legit film with a very VERY strong lead in Florence Pugh, and it's co-produced by Dwayne, so I don't think that this is going to get the same "who gives a shit" treatment that most WWE films get.

Then we get Samoa Joe heeling it right the fuck up against Jeff Hardy. Joe is always a plus when it comes to needing a damn good promo. The "Oh, WENNNNDDDDYYYYY" stuff was a little too over-the-top, but Joe can make that shit play. So that feud I'm assuming is going to come to a head at the Rumble, or prior to that so they can both enter. Either way, as long as Joe is having fun, I'm having fun.

Now the next part is technically "new", but it's not "new" in a good way, and that's The Fabulous Truth against Miz and Mandy Rose... what? Yeah, I'm not really down with having Miz and Mandy go over Truth and Mella, because that's a pairing I really dig. But whatever... it happened and it ended pretty quickly.

Then we get a few guys we haven't seen in forever, and that's The Club answering The Usos request to have a match against The Bar. And they have a really good match! It's nice to see the Good Brothers actually get some good air time. Of course it would get a little schmozzed up because The Bar would eventually come out and try to interfere, but the real fun began when Sanity came out and fucking wrecked EVERYONE (except The Bar, for some reason). Because we need to pay a lot more attention to Sanity. They are a really fun and conceivably really badass faction if they get booked correctly. The key to getting them over on the main roster? Book them like they were mostly booked in NXT where they come out, cause chaos, beat the shit out of everyone and slink back into the darkness, and keep doing it and doing it until they get a title shot.

But it keeps getting fresher, because the main event for the evening is a tag match with Daniel Bryan and Andrade Almas (yay!) against A.J. Styles and newest member of SD Live Mustafa Ali (Kermit-flailing YAAAAAAAAAY!) and I loved everything about this match. It's reintroducing us to El Idolo after not being on TV in a long time, and it's giving us Mustafa as a full-time Smackdown player and that's great, but perhaps even greater was Ali getting the pin and the win over Bryan, when Almas could have much more predictably taken that pin. It's like Chris Jericho said once, and I agree for the most part, is that heels don't have to win the consequence-free matches. They're heels. They're not always supposed to win. And putting Ali over like that is going to go a long way towards getting Ali over for the fans who aren't used to him, and Ali is absolutely one of my favorites (as I've discussed previously in this blog) and he should be a big star. Whether or not that will happen (because Vince), only the future can say.

So, basically, this was a pretty normal week with just about everything on Smackdown being marginally if not almost infinitely superior to Raw. But what was abnormal about it was that while Raw was talking the talk as far as making things fresher, Smackdown was definitely walking the walk.

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