The Good
For Raw, it is actually interesting and funny to see where they are going with the Authors of Pain. After Drake Mavericks “accident” at Survivor Series, WWE had a segment where other tag teams were making fun of Maverick. One team that angered Maverick was Bobby Roode and Chad Gable, which led to a match. Roode and Gable ended up winning pretty quickly in their match and they now look to be in line next for a championship match. While potty humor is childish to some fans, others found it funny. But, overall, it helps give Maverick a reason to unleash AOP on tag teams going forward.
For Smackdown, the main event was between Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton and it was a great match and left fans wanting more. After a back and forth match, Orton ended up winning after hitting a 2nd RKO on Mysterio. After the match, Orton then kept attacking Mysterio and ripped off his mask. This is intriguing because now we wait and see what Mysterio is going to do for payback.
The Bad
For Raw, for what feels like the 3rd week in a row, we had the Lucha House Party versus the Revival, with the same result of LHP winning. While I do understand trying to build up a new tag team in the division, there are better ways than to build them up every week at the expense of the Revival.
For Smackdown, it is really confusing what they are trying to do with Charlotte Flair. After explaining her attack on Ronda Rousey at Survivor Series, she then had a match against both of the IIconics. While they are pushing this idea that Charlotte now is ruthless and thinks she is the best, this sounds very similar to what they did with Becky Lynch, but it just doesn’t have the firepower that Lynch had when she changed her attitude.
The Final Verdict
Each brand had a lot in front of them going forward. While both brands prepare for TLC, each show had to spend respectable time on which rivalries they are going to push for this PPV as well as still focus on the fallout of Survivor Series. For Raw, they did a good job of focusing on Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose as well as Baron Corbin versus Braun Strowman. But, as far as Ronda Rousey, they are trying to balance out focusing on her match with Nia Jax as well as what happens next between her and Charlotte Flair. As for Smackdown, they have a WWE Championship rematch between AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan and that’s about it, so they need to push some ideas going forward. With that said, I will have to say that Raw had the better show this week. They were able to build up TLC better than Smackdown was this week. But, with Smackdown having to come up with a few more matches for the PPV, I expect their build to increase these next few weeks.
