RAW In A Nutshell: From St. Louis To Saudi Arabia

This week’s episode of RAW comes to us from the American Midwest, and from there, WWE’s red brand sends a bunch of Superstars to the Middle East. Put it another way, and it’s from St. Louis to Saudi Arabia, and all in the matter of a couple of days. That’s not a great travel schedule from this vantage point, but it’s what is happening this week. Monday’s offering served as RAW’s g0-home show, and gave us the final bits of hype for quite a few of the matches slated for Thursday. So, let’s crack open this Nutshell and see what happened!

Best Match of the night:

Becky and Kairi Sane as the opening bout was decent enough, but for me the money match was Ricochet and Drew McIntyre. Obviously, the name of the game here was to sell Crown Jewel. While it did end in a DQ, it also ended in an RKO, and it was a nifty spot at that-more on that later.

Worst match of the night:

There were a few blah matches…but the final segment was what drove me the most nuts.

Spot of the Night:

Remember that RKO I mentioned earlier?

Jobber of the Night:

Those faux Chicago Cubs.

Like, hey, jobbers have a place here…but at this point, should we really have the RAW Tag Team Champions continually facing jobbers? Just seems weird.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

I have to go with the main event segment of The King’s “Divorce” Court. I can’t believe (or, I guess I should?) that WWE has given us, in a matter of months, the Maria and Mike Kanellis baby drama angle and then Lana, Rusev and Bobby Lashley in some weird cuckolding.

I struggle to believe that those angles were among the best WWE could concoct when it comes to taking on AEW and providing fans with more entertaining television.

Botch of the night:

An unconventional botch, but here’s my take…

For that Falls Count Anywhere match between Rollins and Rowan…WWE gave us a repeat from Rock and Foley many years ago. For real? It was kinda crap back then, and it did not improve with age.

Noteworthy Moment:

I guess the most noteworthy of the evening was Paige making her return, just to get the green mist and then presumably being written off?

Overall lowlights:

For me, and for many others, it’s the continuation of the dreadful Rusev-Lana-Lashley program. Like, I am all for getting Rusev a push…but this is terrible.

And it’s not just me…

Overall highlights:

Seeing Ricochet and McIntyre go, that at least gives me hope that the Team Hogan versus Team Flair match on Thursday might not be too bad.

Becky Lynch and Kairi Sane showed some promise…makes me think that Sane could eventually get a fruitful singles run, as she should.

After the final bell:

Well, all eyes will now turn to the big Saudi Arabia show on Thursday…and I can’t say that I am too enthused for it (just being honest). Most of that is probably because it’s on an odd day and time, so it just doesn’t feel like it’s a major wrestling event…but even the big few matches aren’t generating enough buzz for me to think they will deliver. Hopefully going into it with low expectations means I won’t be anything but impressed by the time the show wraps up.