RAW’s Acting General Manager Baron Corbin (booo) starts the show to gloat post-Survivor Series, and bring out Stephanie McMahon, who is also interested in gloating about how well Survivor Series was for the RAW brand. Baron reminds her that she made a promise: if RAW sweeps at Survivor Series (and it did), then she would consider making him the permanent General Manager. Stephanie seems thrown, but before she can say anything, Braun Strowman interrupts.
Stephanie promised Strowman something, too. That if RAW sweeps at Survivor Series (and, don’t forget, it did) he would have his chance at a match against Corbin at TLC and would even be allowed to pick the stipulations of the match. Stephanie, perhaps realizing that she’s made too many promises, makes one final one. If Strowman wins their match at TLC, Corbin will not only lose his shot at being RAW GM, but he’ll lose all authority altogether.
If he wins, he’ll become the new, permanent GM. In what might have been an act of desperation from Corbin to flex his authority while he knows he still has it, he tries to set a handicap tag team match between Strowman and the team of Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre. But Stephanie sees Corbin’s flex and does a flex of her own, making it a six-man tag match – McIntyre, Lashley, and Corbin v. Strowman, Finn Balor and Elias – and sets the match for right this very second.
Between a commercial break, Baron Corbin ups the ante even more by declaring whoever gets pinned or counted out is eliminated and must return to the locker room. The match gets off to a strong start with McIntyre out for Strowman’s blood, and Finn eager to get some time to shine. A fun little thing happens where Finn, realizing he’s in over his head, keeps trying to tag out but is prevented from reaching his team mates by the team of Lashley and McIntyre. Eventually they pretty badly beat Finn down and he’s pinned and eliminated. Not too long after, they beat Elias up so badly he can’t re-enter the ring before the ten count and he’s eliminated as well, leaving it a 1-on-3 match where Strowman has to fend for himself.
The assault on Strowman gets pretty brutal, and despite the fact that McIntyre ends up disqualified for hitting Browman with a chair, he refuses to stop beating on Strowman and the ref is pretty powerless to stop him. The three of them beat him down so severely that he’s bleeding and can barely stand. Corbin takes off his belt, ties it around Strowman’s arm, and Lashley holds the belt as Corbin drops the steel steps right down on Strowman’s elbow. Bleeding and screaming, paramedics arrive to assist and end the match. The fate of Strowman’s arm and whether or not it shattered is unclear.
Next up is Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. Last week, Ambrose declared that his partnership with The Shield and with Rollins made him weak, and he burned his Shield vest. This week, Rollins waxes poetic about how it was just six years to the day that The Shield first debuted, and how good those early years were. He’s both heartbroken by Ambrose’s betrayal and lack of friendship during the last few years, and furious that his own best friend would antagonize him. Rollins and Ambrose have a match at TLC for the Intercontinental Championship, but Rollins doesn’t want to wait that long, he wants to fight Ambrose NOW. Ambrose appears via video message to tell Rollins that he isn’t going to run out to the ring like a lunatic and that he’s above that now. The Shield committed crimes that they are now going to have to answer for, and Rollins will be answering to him. He tells him to come find him if he wants to fight, and Rollins tries, but by the time he gets backstage Ambrose is nowhere to be found.
Sasha Banks wants some revenge on Nia Jax for the way she sacrificed her to Asuka at Survivor Series during the team match last night, and she tries to get that revenge via a tag team match between Sasha and Bayley and Nia Jax and Tamina. Sasha and Bayley are so unbelievably in sync as a tag team that it’s a real joy to watch them work, even if you know that the outcome probably isn’t going to be favorable to them. Not when Tamina and Nia Jax are their opponents. They put up a great fight, but Nia Jax has been unstoppable as of late, and tonight is no exception. Tamina and Jax win.
Charly is getting ready to interview Baron Corbin when Ambrose pops up on the video screen to interrupt and tells her to go find Rollins and tell him that he’ll be waiting for him in the spot “The Shield called home.” After a commercial break we see Rollins find the spot and kick down the door only to find no sign of Ambrose except for a message he spray-painted on the door: the words “burn it down.”
Drake Maverick pissed his pants during Survivor Series, if you didn’t know, and backstage everyone makes fun of him with some fun pee jokes.
The next match is under “Lucha house rules,” meaning all three members of Lucha House Party are allowed to compete against the two members of The Revival. The match is fast-paced with a lot of impressive aerial moves by Lucha House Party, who get a quick victory. It was the kind of match that’s over as quickly as it should be, but is still so fun to watch that you probably wouldn’t have minded if it went on a little longer.
Charly interviews Rollins about Ambrose’s mind games. Rollins wants revenge for what Ambrose said about Roman – that he’s “getting what he deserved,” which is a noble enough mission considering Ambrose saying that, kayfabe or not, feels like a solid step too far. Rollins runs off in a hurry when he hears that Ambrose was just spotted in the area.
Ronda Rousey addresses the events of Survivor Series and her brutal beating at the hands of Charlotte Flair. I’ve been notoriously anti-Rousey since her debut, but the way that she engages with the fans and the big smile on her face when she’s coming down the stage is admittedly pretty endearing. I feel like some of the recent events surrounding her have been a mad scramble to turn the tides in her favor and squash any dissent or concern about how quickly her star is rising and how fast she obtained the Women’s Championship, and I find myself in her segment starting to feel like maybe she’s close to deserving it. Wanting to take her beating in stride, Rousey demands that somebody – literally anybody – come out and fight her, because if she can’t defend herself and her title on her “worst day,” then she doesn’t deserve to be the champion.
Baron Corbin comes out instead and tries to talk her out of defending her title considering she’s in poor shape and because she has that big title match against Nia Jax coming up at TLC, but she won’t back down, and Corbin sends out “the next Women’s Champion,” Mickie James. I expected a little bit more of a fight, but this is over pretty quickly. Rousey gets James to tap out after James had what looked like the upper hand, and Rousey stumbles off victoriously. Nia Jax and Tamina sneak up on her at the stage entrance just to intimidate her a little bit and walk off.
Gable and Roode v. The AOP. It seems like the goal was for Drake Maverick to get revenge on Roode and Gable for making pee jokes at his expense, but if that was the point, it didn’t work, because Gable and Roode win. A future tag team title match is all but guaranteed for them.
Ambrose waits for Rollins backstage, calling him whiny and cementing his heel status by mocking the audience and detailing how he plans to crush Seth Rollins. After a commercial break, Rollins announces that he’s leaving to catch a flight and is giving up on trying to get back at Ambrose just this second.
Natalya and Ruby Riott have had some personal issues, with Ruby mocking Natalya and bringing her recently deceased father Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart into it. Those issues got so bad that both of them lost their spot on the RAW team at Survivor Series as punishment for their conflicts, and here they have a chance to face each other one-on-one and sort out that beef. If you ask me, it’s pretty insanely upsetting to watch WWE make light of the death of one of their own, especially so soon after Neidhart’s death and while Natalya is still grieving. I have to say that as a match promised to be about igniting a flame within Natalya, she didn’t fully demonstrate it. She didn’t really bring it the way I was hoping, but she did take a much deserved victory and hopefully sent a message to the Riott Squad that messing with her or her family is grounds for a fight.
An update on Strowman’s elbow: it’s shattered. What that means for his TLC match is “touch and go.” Also, backstage, Dean Ambrose is seen swaggering backstage headed towards the main stage.
Again, he cements himself as the guy to hate by insulting the audience and the audience’s children and the friends he stabbed in the back. He’s gloating about how Rollins can’t get his hands on him, only to learn that Rollins bluffed about leaving and is fast approaching the ring. Rollins’ ambush is only stopped by a low blow from Dean Ambrose. Once he lays Ambrose out, he gloats some more and mocks Rollins before leaving.
