2023-12-05 04:02:54
Welcome to Bleacher Report’s live coverage and recap of WWE Raw on December 4.
Last week, Drew McIntyre expressed his disappointment with Seth Rollins giving Jey Uso a title shot before him by hitting him with a Glasgow Kiss. This week, Rollins and Uso fought for the world title while The Scottish Warrior battled Sami Zayn.
The Creed Brothers already earned a shot at the Tag Team Championships held by Finn Balor and Damian Priest, but they had to go through DJ McDonagh and Dominik Mysterio on Monday’s show.
The women’s division also got some attention when Shayna Baszler took on Nia Jax, and Tegan Nox and Natalya faced Kayden Carter and Katana Chance.
Let’s take a look at everything that happened on Monday’s Raw.
McIntyre opened the show with a promo to talk regarding everything that has happened with him recently. As soon as he mentioned Zayn’s name, he came out to respond.
McIntyre decided not to wait for their match to be later in the night and got a ref to come out and get things going, which Zayn seemed up for.
The Scottish Warrior took control right out of the gate and threw Zayn halfway across the ring with a belly-to-belly suplex.
McIntyre is already adjusting nicely to working as a heel once more. He began focusing on Zayn’s knee once he saw him favoring it. As the ref was trying to check on Zayn, McIntyre drilled him with a Claymore to get the win.
This was a fun way to start the show. 20-minute talking segments are the norm, but giving the fans an entertaining match to get things going is going to raise the energy of the crowd.
Result: Drew McIntyre defeated Sami Zayn
Grade: B+
Notable Moments and Observations
It looks like Zayn just got out of the shower before going out here. His hair was soaking wet and the area around the neck of his shirt was wet.
Zayn hit a really nice tornado DDT to counter a sidewalk slam.
One of McIntyre’s suplexes sent Zayn from ring post to ring post.
Jax and Becky Lynch had a brief confrontation backstage before Jax came to the ring for her scheduled match once morest Baszler.
The Irresistible Force used her size and power advantage to ground the former MMA fighter at first, but Baszler occasionally found a way to use her striking ability to fire back.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Jax scored the win with her finisher. Her celebration was short-lived due to Lynch coming out to the ring. Jax chose to retreat instead of face The Man.
This match was decent but there wasn’t much outside of a German suplex from the middle rope that people will be talking regarding tomorrow.
Result: Nia Jax defeated Shayna Baszler
Grade: C
Notable Moments and Observations
After the break, McIntyre was shown attacking Zayn backstage while his knee was being looked at by a doctor. He further injured Zayn’s leg before being sent away by Adam Pearce.
There was a scary moment when Jax landed right on Baszler’s head following a German suplex.
Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci have been fighting with Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano for weeks, so a 2-out-of-3 Falls match was booked to potentially settle their feud.
Mr. European Excellence started once morest Ciampa but quickly tagged in Vinci. Both teams were working hard to get the first fall and gain the upper hand. Kaiser ended up rolling Ciampa up for the first pin following Vinci pulled Gargano out of the ring.
After a break, Ciampa and Gargano scored two straight falls to win the whole thing. As expected, this was a great example of tag team wrestling.
Imperium might be on the verge of imploding but at least WWE has done a good job positioning all three members of the group as solo acts.
Result: DIY defeated Imperium
Grade: B+
Notable Moments and Observations
Vinci hit a running crossbody that looked amazing. He was moving very fast and took Ciampa down hard.
Gargano’s fakeout kick is always a fun moment in a match.
Kaiser’s facial expressions are always on point.
Carter and Chance faced Natalya and Nox in women’s tag team action with Niven and Nox sitting with the commentary team.
This was a short but energetic match. Natalya and Nox still need to work on their chemistry as partners, but KC2 helped carry the load in that respect.
Carter and Chance ended up scoring a somewhat unexpected win by hitting a unique double-team finisher on Natalya.
The majority of the match was right down the middle but the finish was excellent.
Result: Chance and Carter defeated Natalya and Nox
Grade: C+
Notable Moments and Observations
Niven making Cole call her Ms. P was hilarious.
When Nattie powerbombed both women at once, their heads came very close to hitting each other on the way down.
The way Carter held Chance up before dropping her on Nattie for the pin looked awesome.
Cody Rhodes came out to his usual array of cheers and fans singing his song only to end up being interrupted by another video from Shinsuke Nakamura.
Once we got back to the action, Brutus and Julius Creed faced Dom and McDonagh in a tag team match. Shortly following it started and the Creeds took control, R-Truth came out wearing a Judgment Day shirt.
After the interactions he had with the group last week, it looks like WWE is going to have him act like he is part of the group, which will undoubtedly lead to some hilarious moments.
This was a high-energy, fast-paced match with a lot of enjoyable sequences and spots. The Creed brothers are on another level, especially when they have smaller opponents they can throw around.
The Brutus Bomb ended up getting them the win as they prepare to challenge Priest and Balor for the tag titles.
Result: The Creeds defeated Mysterio and McDonagh
Grade: B+
Notable Moments and Observations
Can WWE please start putting Ivy Nile in matches?
The way Brutus launched Mysterio over the announce table looked great.
The main event of this week’s show was the world title match that was set up last week between Rollins and Uso.
They had close to the last half-hour of the show, so the champion and challenger had more than enough time to put together a fantastic main event.
Both men were using everything in their respective bag of tricks to try to put the other away. Uso even resorted to using Roman Reigns’ Spear and Rollins tried to use Triple H’s Pedigree.
Eventually, it was The Stomp that secured the victory for The Visionary. He and Jey shook hands following it was over to show that there were no hard feelings.
As Rollins was celebrating, McIntyre came out of the crowd and nailed Uso with a Claymore. He slammed Rollins on the floor before putting Uso through the announce table.
Result: Seth Rollins defeated Jey Uso
Grade: A-
Notable Moments and Observations
The crowd gave Samantha Irvin a second to announce Rollins before continuing to sing his song. It was kind of a cool moment.
Jey hit a really nice DDT at ringside that Rollins sold perfectly.
The way McIntyre put Uso through the table looked brutal.
This week’s Raw only had six matches across three hours, but since most of them were good performances, it led to us getting a pretty decent show.
The Creed Brothers vs. Dom and McDonagh and Zayn vs. McIntyre were definite highlights, but the Match of the Night was undoubtedly Rollins vs. Uso.
McIntyre has his sights set on both Uso and the world heavyweight title, so it looks like he is going to be the big bad on Raw moving forward, which is the perfect place for him to be right now.
WWE has had Judgment Day and The Bloodline doing a lot of heavy lifting on both brands over the past year, so having a solo act like The Scottish Warrior is going to give some more depth to the heel side of the roster.
Some of the backstage segments felt like filler, but the majority of what was included on Monday’s show did a good job of highlighting the current storylines.
Grade: B-
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