Universal Champion Roman Reigns def. Kevin Owens in a Steel Cage MatchIt was incredibly smart for WWE to kick off the show with this match as SmackDown had an NFL lead-in this week. The Steel Cage stipulation made sense given how much Jey Uso interfered at TLC, even though Uso got involved a bunch here as well. That would be my only nitpick of this as it was an excellent piece of business otherwise. Owens is flourishing in the underdog role while Reigns continues to kill it. I figured this would be the end of the rivalry with Reigns winning, but Owens getting screwed over yet again means a third match is likely for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, potentially with Uso either banned from ringside or being trapped inside of a shark cage.
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Reckoning def. Nikki CrossI know I sound like a broken record at this point, but Mia Yim really deeds to ditch the dumb RETRIBUTION act. Mercedes Martinez was able to escape back to NXT, so why can't Yim? Of course, the biggest difference between her and Martinez is that she's doing all that she could do in NXT, but at least that'd be better than whatever the hell this Reckoning crap is. On the bright side, this was a quality contest between two of Raw's better women's wrestlers. Cross wasn't able to score much offense, but this was a significant improvement over her recent Main Event matches against Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross.
Inner Circle (Chris Jericho and MJF) def. Top FlightI believe this marked the first time Jericho and MJF have teamed up by themselves and they're a far more compelling duo than Jericho and Jake Hager. Top Flight rose to the occasion against The Young Bucks and The Hybrid2 and once again had a strong showing here. Jericho, on the other hand, is probably best doing tag team stuff at this stage of his career with the way he moves around the ring as he stuck out like a sore thumb. On the whole, this was an enjoyable outing. Hager called out Wardlow afterward and they'll go one-on-one next week.
NXT Tag Team Champions Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch def. Drake Maverick and Killian Dain in a Street FightMaverick and Dain were being positioned as a comedy tag team struggling to get on the same page for a while and they thrived in that role, but they needed to get serious in their recent rivalry with Lorcan and Burch and they stepped up. This was way more of a Street Fight than whatever the hell that main event of Monday's Raw was (except for the tagging in and out, what was that about?). Both teams brought the fight to each other, made great use of the stipulation, and kicked off the evening on a high note. I really hope Lorcan and Burch can have a meaningful reign as tag team champions and not hold the belts for the sake of holding them (i.e. Imperium, Breezango, BroserWeights, etc).
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