5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (4 Dec - Results & Review)
Drew McIntyre has standout performance, Uso/Rollins steals the show, Cody misfires.
For the longest time, fans could set their watches – and not their DVRs – to bad December episodes of WWE Raw. They came every year after Survivor Series like clockwork.
Monday was the first December offering of the red brand this year, and while it might get passing marks here, it was carried on the strength of two things: Drew McIntyre, and the main event.
McIntyre’s heel turn has been one of the best-written and executed angles WWE has run in a while, avoiding dramatic tropes and instead just doing good storytelling and logical booking. His descent continued Monday night with Sami Zayn serving as the perfect foil.
And the main event – which included McIntyre in the aftermath – was just class wrestling, built up with a solid video package hyping Jey Uso.
Overall, Raw had its usual mix of good wrestling – though at this stage, a “good” wrestling match shouldn’t automatically qualify as an “up” any longer. In 2023, any decent North American wrestling promotion should be able to put on a three-hour show filled with “good” wrestling. That alone won’t cut it, and giving positive marks simply because a match didn’t stink is skewing the overall quality of the show.
Raw was disappointing on several fronts, with overly long matches, a two-out-of-three falls match that didn’t make sense, and a very rare misfire involving Cody Rhodes.
Let’s get to it…