The new face of Monday Night Raw delivered one of his best weeks yet, while The Face That Ran the Place highlights the action on SmackDown. We hand out our weekly WWE Six-Pack awards.
It was another good week for both the Red and Blue brands in WWE, even with Raw suffering from a little bit of fat. The arrival of the cruiserweights next week should help beef up the show, but don’t let that take away from what was the latest in a solid creative run for both nights.
As we do every week, we’ll hand out our six-pack of awards, including Match of the Week, Promo of the Week, Biggest Winner, Biggest Loser, Worst Nitpick and Favorite Moment.
Before jumping into that, though, it’s worth noting what an interesting time the WWE finds itself in historically. Not since the literal change to the PG Era has the company so explicitly touted the start of a new epoch like it has this New Era. What makes this interesting, though, is that so many of the stars of yesteryear are still physically capable and believable. By the time the Attitude Era took over, you may have loved to boo Hollywood Hogan but you knew he couldn’t cut it in the ring like he used to. Today, though, the John Cenas and Randy Ortons can still bring it.
You also have a lot of “new” headliners – like A.J. Styles and Kevin Owens – who are actually older than more established WWE hands like Seth Rollins.
Old faces trying to hang on. New names trying to establish themselves. Both sides tugging on a rope with us viewers in the middle. These weekly tectonic shifts have WWE so encapsulating and keep giving up more than enough to talk about each week. Let’s crack this six-pack open.
Match of the Week
There’s really nowhere else to start besides Jinder Mahal vs. Jack Swagger.
Kidding.
The Kevin Owens-Roman Reigns main event on Raw offered a typical TV story. Don’t give away anything too crazy, have a couple run-ins, end the show on a schmoz.
But – cue Mauro Ranallo voice – like the cream in an Oreo, the middle of this match delivered!
When Seth Rollins made his run-in, the main event felt like a disappointment. The match hadn’t really offered anything memorable and we were going to watch it end prematurely on the interference.
Turns out that was just the appetizer for the restart. The sheer wrestling that took place between when Mick Foley restarted the match and when Rusev made his run-in was PPV-level quality. Reigns continues to prove he can have a good match with anyone. His imposing size and undeniable athleticism offer a tabula rasa that any other wrestler can project his style onto. KO systematically slowing The Guy down with load-bearing moves was solid storytelling that made sense.
And Owens continues to be a masterful performer. The continued theatrical use of the chin lock screams “less is more.” His mocking of Roman’s hoo-ah chant before a failed cannonball was perfect heel garnish. And the way the two kept escalating and still kicking out of finisher-level maneuvers felt very much like the end of a PPV match.
This being a free match, of course, meant shenanigans in the name of Rusev. And the fact this did cost Roman his Clash of Champions title ticket is actually refreshing.
Still, the 10 minutes or so of unfiltered Owens vs. Reigns in the ring made us excited for whenever that feud does highlight a PPV.
Promo of the Week
It really is The Kevin Owens Show and we’ll get to him in a second.
First, honorable mention props to the New Day for answering the steaming dud that was last week’s Old Day segment by going back to what they do best: self-awareness. Their “sike” when promising to replay the Old Day clip told the audience they knew the skit was bad and wanted to be in on the joke. Later, when Kofi Kingston went for a cheap pop by dropping a Baltimore Ravens reference in Baltimore, Big E responded with “oh, we’re pandering now?” It reminds you of their time machine bit a couple months ago, when they returned to 2009 and Kofi didn’t want to leave because that was a good year for him. When they break down the fourth wall, there’s still nobody better on the mic than the unicorn trio.
But nobody did that better than Owens in his pre-main event promo with Seth Rollins on Monday.
Doesn’t it seem like Rollins, for as incredible as he is, already feels like an old toy? He isn’t part of the Owens, Balor, Styles, Zayn, Horsewomen second wave of New Era talent. He doesn’t hold the legend status of Cena, Orton, or Lesnar from the previous generation. He, Reigns, and Ambrose very interestingly sit on the bridge between the short-circuited Reality Era and this New Era.
So Owens cutting a promo on how he’s now Triple H’s favorite and how Rollins never did anything without help really struck a chord. Mainly because you do get the sense Triple H does favor the talent that came along post-FCW. And because what made Rollins so over in real life was his association with The Shield.
Obviously, in real life, these two are indy veterans who deeply respect each other. And it’s absurd to think Seth Rollins is anything near expired goods. But Owens simply picking at the corners of those notions made for compelling television.
Biggest Winner
With all the talk of New Era competitors making a name for themselves in the ring, we need to acknowledge Corey Graves, one of the breakout stars of the brand split. His start in commentary at NXT certainly proved bumpy. Graves often seemed unsure of himself and a bit clunky on the mic. But wow has he developed into the perfect modern-day heel commentator.
Whereas JBL has received flak for years for the wishy-washiness of his character on commentary, you know what you’re getting with Graves. He may respect a babyface, but he certainly will not like them. And he always finds a convenient way to support a heel’s tactics or put down his fellow commentators in hilarious fashion. It’s Bobby Heenan 101 and Graves makes the dean’s list.
Some favorite examples from this week:
You could nitpick or critique something about all of the main roster commentators and how they approach the job right now. Except for Graves. In these eyes, he is clicking on all cylinders behind the microphone each week.
Biggest Loser
After Raw, this spot was even odds to go to Alicia Fox.
As Michael Cole kept repeating, she is one of the most decorated competitors in the division. And here we were watching her getting treated like a glorified jobber by Nia Jax. For a former Divas Champion to essentially serve as the video game mini-boss between Nia’s jobber training and facing a big boss in a real feud is insulting to Fox. And to be called a “fry short of a happy meal” by Cole while this all happened? My how the mighty have fallen from her prominent role as a member of Team Bella not so long ago.
But then Tuesday came around and a new contender emerged.
After months of inconsistent booking and lack of character building, Apollo Crews finds himself in no man’s land. He’s a jacked dude who smiles a lot. That’s it.
Having him do the favors for established stars like Miz makes sense. But to face fellow NXT alum Baron Corbin and be fed like a jobber to someone who’s at the same point in their career trajectory? That’s just cold.
At least Alicia Fox can be returned to prominence in a snap, based on her track record. Crews has nothing to show for himself on the main roster. A loss like this is crippling. Couple that with Corbin’s step-up feud with Jack Swagger and in-depth character development on Talking Smack later that night, and his arrow’s pointing up. Crews’ isn’t even pointing down. It’s like the compass in Pirates of the Caribbean that just spins in every direction, with no idea where it’s going.
Worst Nitpick
This isn’t the first place you’ll find a Curt Hawkins complaint. It certainly won’t be the last, either.
But really, WWE? Curt Hawkins’ returning gimmick is “Face the Facts?” Maybe today’s 8-year-olds are completely oblivious to Chuck Norris Facts, but nobody else in the world is. This is not just a blatant rip-off of an established pop culture meme; it’s a blatant rip-off of an established pop culture meme that peaked five years ago!
When the Hawkins vignettes debuted a few weeks ago, the idea was cute. Oh, there goes WWE again, jumping on an internet phenomenon bandwagon too late for its own good.
The assumption was, once Hawkins actually made his return, he would ditch the “facts” and do more showing instead of telling. Nope.
He’s just taken what was plagiarized text on screen and now made it plagiarized speech on screen. And the worst part is, it’s not like Hawkins has any established reputation as a Chuck Norris-level badass. It just does not click.
The only saving grace here: if Hawkins turns out to be Heath Slater-level ignorant about his plight and plays this entire thing off for ironic laughs. Though you do have to wonder, if that’s the direction they go, why WWE would build Hawkins up so much only to make him a punching bag.
Then again, not the first time WWE would do that to someone. Certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Favorite Moment
Just going go right out and say it: we still pop hard for John Cena.
Hate him or love him – and honestly, if you still hate him at this point, it has to be out of ironic respect – Cena’s music still gets the biggest reaction once that hissing drops in the arena. Next time, listen closely. The “John Cena sucks” chants don’t start until the horns do, obviously. But the boos don’t start either. At the very, very beginning of his music, there are no boos. It’s just a loud guttural reaction. It’s like the people who plan on booing Cena don’t realize they’re supposed to boo him until after their initial “OMG it’s John Cena!” reaction subsides.
Look, the guy is still WWE’s main attraction. For the years of complaining about his Five Moves of Doom and his ubiquity near the main event, you’re disappointed if you go to a live event and he doesn’t perform. So for him to make a surprise return and re-insert himself into the title picture: mark out moment.
And to finally play the Cena-chasing-Flair move so overtly is a trump card WWE has been holding onto for awhile. To play it now instantly gives SmackDown a marquee plot for the casual fan. It also immediately bolsters the prestige of the WWE Championship belt, which has certainly suffered at the hands of the push the Universal Championship has received. We call that a moment worth cheering.
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