WWE Monday Night Raw Recap — November 22, 2021 — Vince McMahon’s EGGscapades
The Fallout From Survivor Series, That Had Nothing to Do With Survivor Series
A few weeks ago, I started writing about Professional Wrestling on this blog and plan on continuing to do so, along with my typical Film Reviews and Analysis pieces, but one thing I never really thought that I would find myself doing is taking time out of my day to write about Monday Night Raw. While yes, I do watch it weekly as part of our audio review series with the Deep Six Wrestling Podcast, I often times do not enjoy the show, and so investing more time into it seemed a bit crazy at first, but then last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw happened and it broke me. So here we are.
The WWE emanated from the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York for the second of two straight nights, with Survivor Series and Monday Night Raw going back-to-back, and the show put forth was… something to behold.
Raw Tag Team Champion Riddle def. Dolph Ziggler…
I liked RKBro when they first started. I liked them when they won the Raw Tag Team Championship. I do not like them now. Riddle’s comedy has somehow gotten worse and starting the show with Vince’s egg nonsense, only to go right into Riddle showing up with a fake beard and mustache and pretending to be Randy Orton Jr. was just not for me. He and Ziggler had the definition of a fine match, but there were zero stakes attached and it is safe to say that no fans care about Ziggler or Bobby Roode in 2021.
Bianca Belair def. Tamina…
This exact match happened last week, aside from the totally shocking, groundbreaking development that Natalya was on RAW this week solely to accompany Tamina to the ring despite being a Smackdown Superstar! This wild development was of course in part due to Vince McMahon’s announcement that everyone from Raw and Smackdown would need to be at RAW in order for them to find out who stole Cleopatra’s Egg (which we will get to at the end of this). Outside of Natalya, Sami Zayn was the one other Smackdown star that was given time on this show. No Drew McIntyre. No Roman Reigns. No Charlotte Flair. No Toni Storm. No Uso Brothers. So if you were expecting to see any big names on the show tonight, as the WWE advertised for a day, that just did not happen. Cool.
Anyways, Bianca continues to look strong in-ring as she heads into her program with Doudrop.
Seth Rollins vs Finn Balor… never happened…
This will always be one of my biggest gripes with the WWE. Advertising matches that they never, ever intended on delivering. Advertising a rematch from Summerslam 2016 and then just having Seth attack Finn until he can’t wrestle is quite a way to just get around not doing this. If you enjoy this style of booking… why?
Imagine if in Avengers: Infinity War, we just never got to see the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe fight Thanos because he just instantly KO’d them an walked away to go do some other stuff before they eventually come back to it, or maybe they don’t even do that, as there is genuinely a good chance we never get this Rollins v Balor match as Seth is still embroiled in a World Championship feud with Big E. It’s just not good.
Seth also got assaulted by a fan after this segment. I can’t imagine buying a ticket to a wrestling show only to go and attack a performer. Be better. Do not do stupid shit like this, ever. Seth being OKAY is good, but security needs to be better. In today’s age where people do not know how to act, it will always be seen as pure luck that when these instances happen, the performers are not hurt or attacked with weapons as security is more often than not, late to catch the attackers. Scary stuff.
The Street Profits vs. AJ Styles & Omos ended in a no-contest…
Booking one of your top Babyface tag-teams to come out with a bag, then proceeding to wrestle a match, only to open the bag and reveal a Fire Extinguisher and using said device on their opponents, throwing the match in the process and then celebrating outside of the wrestling ring is certainly a way to make them seem cool, I guess. Or to me, it made Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins look like complete idiots who don’t care about rising in the Tag Team Division and just instead want to have fun? This was bizarre booking for a face team, having had Omos being a thorn in their side for weeks now, wouldn’t it have made sense for them to cost Omos a match rather than just basically forfeiting a match to the guy so they could spray him with a Fire Extinguisher?
Queen Zelina & Carmella def. WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Rhea Ripley & Nikki A.S.H…
Man, what a time to be a fan of Rhea Ripley and Nikki Cross/A.S.H., am I right? These two have had quite the 2021, with Rhea being poised for a big year, being pushed hard in the Royal Rumble match despite not winning and then defeating Asuka at Wrestlemania to win the RAW Women’s Championship before rekindling her rivarly with Charlotte Flair from 2020, the feud in which Charlotte went after the NXT Championship (for reasons) and won the belt, entering NXT for a few months and not taking the pin to drop the title to Io Shirai. Rhea would then go on to drop another championship to Charlotte during, what I would regard as one of the worst wrestling feuds of 2021, despite having a killer match at Money in the Bank this summer.
Nikki A.S.H. then cashed in her Money in the Bank briefcase to beat Charlotte Flair for that championship, before dropping it back to Charlotte shortly afterwards, forming a Tag Team called “SuperBrutality” with Rhea Ripley later on, with the two winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, succesfully defending the belt once, on October 4th in a four minute match, before Nikki would go on to eat pins from Zelina Vega thrice in a row, first in a tag match, then singles, and then finally on this show, where Zelina Vega and Carmella won the titles in a match that lasted four minutes and fifty seconds.
Take all of that as you will.
Cedric Alexander def. 24/7 Champion Reggie; Dana Brooke def. 24/7 Champion Cedric Alexander…
I have nothing to say.
Bobby Lashley def. Rey & Dominik Mysterio in a Handicap Match…
I adore Bobby Lashley. The man has been on absolute fire since his last run in TNA, attached with Dan Lambert (who is now in AEW with Ethan Page, Scorpio Sky, and American Top Team), and despite his return to WWE initially being a bit lackluster, the past two years have seen Lashley really become the star he should have always been. I really have no complaints about the way WWE is handling Lashley, but the way in which they are playing out this Dominik and Rey Mysterio story is just so strange to me.
For months, the company teased descension between the father and son duo and it seemed like Dominik was poised to be broken away as a heel against his father. Now it just feels like we’re back where they started and that nothing has really changed. Rey Mysterio will always be a pinnacle of wrestling for some, but his son has yet to show any true signs of greatness and skipped his way past developmental despite not showing any signs as to why. I’ll reserve judgement until this actually is payed off, but it has taken forever and has almost never been a captivating storyline.
United States Champion Damian Priest def. Sami Zayn…
This. This was the one bright spot of this three-hour endeavor, and it came about two and a half hours in, with a crowd that paid zero attention to it, opting to do The Wave instead because of the 2 hours that preceded this. Damian Priest has actively been a highlight of WWE Programming since getting called up from NXT, something that has not been true for a lot of recent “promotions” and Sami Zayn will always be a treat to watch. It is just a shame that these two got put in a death spot on this show.
WWE Champion Big E def. Austin Theory…
OKAY. Let’s talk about this damn egg already. During the Survivor Series Kickoff, Vince McMahon made a surprise appearance in what will have to go down as one of the most tone deaf and cringe-inducing segments of the years, as just days after eight more superstars had been released due to “budget cuts”, Vince stepped out of a limo with a golden egg worth $100 Million Dollars, according to him, to an audience of the WWE roster reveling and celebrating Vince as if he was a deity.
This then escalated into someone stealing the egg after numerous segments during the PPV with Vince showing it off, noting that it was gifted to him by Roman Reigns’ cousin, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, because I forgot to mention, this was all an advertisement for the Netflix Original Film, Red Notice, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, with Survivor Series being sponsored by the film to the point where the opening video package for the PPV was more dedicated to promoting that movie than it was to promoting the show. Yes.
Come Monday, Vince opened the show by threatening to fire Sonya Deville and Adam Pearce if they could not find his newly acquired egg, even joking that about them knowing the words “being let go” a bit too much, once again, days after eight wrestlers were released due to “budget cuts” joining a list of over 100 wrestlers from within the WWE that were released for those same reasons over the past year.
Eventually, it was revealed that Austin Theory stole the egg because he wanted to take a Selfie with it, but in his own words, “security was too much, so I went back to my hotel”, which raises so many other questions as to how he got into Vince’s office to see the egg with no issues from security, but then was able to leave the office with the egg and still had no issue? This was dumb, but what took it a step further was Vince then rewarding Theory by gifting him a WWE Championship Match with Big E, that he only lost because he got distracted by Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens arguing. Yes, you read that correctly. Austin Theory, in story, likely would have won the WWE Championship from Big E if he did not get distracted by an argument happening at ringside, making him look dumb and making Big E look like a horrible champion in the process.
I still cannot get my head around this booking or why this was a running storyline on the show for literally all three hours of Monday Night Raw, but here we are. I have seen so, so many episodes of this program since I started watching wrestling in 2014, and watch the product and review it on a weekly basis, but this is the show that broke me. This was one of the worst episodes of Raw I have watched with only one real bright spot coming from Damian Priest and Sami Zayn in a match that seemingly nobody cared about.
Euphoria Season Two just got an official release date for January 9th, 2022, as I am writing this, so if you want to stop watching WWE Raw, go check out Euphoria Season one on HBO Max because that show slaps! Or, alternatively, go check out any other wrestling show, AEW, Impact, Ring of Honor, GCW, New Japan Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling NOAH, DDT, Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, Ice Ribbon, Stardom, literally anything will give you a better product than what is being put forth by WWE with Monday Night Raw.
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