Monday Night Raw Review - November 13, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Judgment Day and JD McDonagh Interrupted World Heavyweight Champion Seth "Freakin" Rollins, Cody Rhodes, Sami Zayn and Jey Uso; Rollins and Zayn def. NXT North American Champion Dominik Mysterio and McDonagh by Disqualification

I really liked how the heels attempted to drive a wedge between the babyface team only for it to backfire. That tension has been teased within Judgment Day for many months now, so although it was intriguing, WWE really needs to move that storyline forward and hopefully WarGames will do that. Rollins and Rhodes facing off briefly was also a nice touch given their history. The impromptu tag team match was good while it lasted and the disqualification finish leading to more chaos afterward served as a successful preview of what to expect in WarGames. On a side note, McDonagh was officially made a member of Judgment Day by Priest a little later on, but he wasn't technically a member when this match took place.

Zoey Stark Confronted Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley

This stemmed from Ripley getting in Adam Pearce's face coming out of the commercial break (after Pearce announced everyone involved in WarGames would be banned from ringside during the main event). Stark came out to a tepid reaction (that's being generous) and that didn't change once this was over. She and Ripley had a decent verbal exchange, but it's going to be difficult to get fans behind Stark when she's also a heel. I'm sure the match will deliver, but the key should be for Stark to come out of this feud better/more over than she was before it.

Shinsuke Nakamura def. Otis

This was much more competitive than Nakamura's squash against Akira Tozawa last week. That's fine because Otis is a notch above Tozawa on the card, but not by much, so the decisive win for Nakamura was necessary. Otis is popular, so I appreciated how he was made to look credible in defeat by taking Nakamura's finisher three times. Chad Gable looks to be next up for Nakamura and I'm really looking forward to that.

Tegan Nox def. WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Piper Niven

The pre-match video package for Nox was well done. WWE needs to do more of that sort of stuff for the newer faces to get fans familiar with them, in addition to booking them on the show regularly. So far, they've done an effective job with Nox, and while her crowd reactions aren't night and day compared to a month ago, she's making progress. This wasn't the cleanest match from Nox and Niven, but at least Nox won as she should have. She and Natalya remain on course to contend for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship soon.

Ludwig Kaiser def. Tommaso Ciampa

While this #DIY vs. Imperium feud hasn't been lighting the world on fire by any means, at least it's kept both teams busy and hopefully they can enter Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship contention at some point. This was a solid, well-wrestled match that got some time. Giovanni Vinci showing up at ringside and attacking Johnny Gargano distracted Ciampa and cost him the victory. Thus, it appears Vinci is back in the good graces of Imperium, for now. The only issue I had with this was that Vinci got ejected from ringside early on and the referee did nothing when he came back toward the end.

Xia Li def. Indi Hartwell by Referee Stoppage

Hartwell attempted to exact revenge on Li for beating Candice LeRae two weeks ago but ended up falling to the same fate. The match was what it needed to be in that it was essentially a squash. I liked how Li continues to win by referee stoppage as it establishes her finishing move as being lethal. Becky Lynch emerged afterward and challenged Li to a one-on-one match on next week's show, which is probably better than doing it at Survivor Series.

The Miz def. Ivar

Apparently, last week's number one contender's Fatal 4-Way was supposed to end in a double pin for Miz and Ivar, but the finish was botched and Miz won clean. I assume that would've decided a true number one contender had it gone down the way it was supposed to, but it still made sense with Ivar attacking Miz following his win last week. They had an average outing, but kudos to Miz for busting out some new offense now that's moving into a babyface role. He won with help from Bronson Reed. It didn't make Miz look strong, but it did protect Ivar as well as set up an eventual hoss fight between Ivar and Reed.

Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions The Judgment Day (Finn Balor and Damian Priest) def. Jey Uso and Cody Rhodes

Both bouts these teams had last month over the tag titles were entertaining and this was along those same lines. Rhodes and Jey being as over as they are helped keep the crowd invested in the action and Drew McIntyre attacking Jey at the end was excellently executed. That cements his heel turn, but I don't think he's joining Judgment Day. Rather, I expect this to be a temporary alliance heading into WarGames, leading to McIntyre joining Judgment Day's team while Rollins' team recruits a fifth member. Cue the return of Randy Orton.

Overall Show

I thought Raw last week was a strong show as well as the week before, but this week was a noticeable step backward. Not that it was a bad edition of Raw per se, but there wasn't much worth writing home about beyond the WarGames developments. That McIntyre heel turn was obviously the highlight of the night, but the rest of the three hours were mostly mediocre this week even though they filled the time nicely and moved stuff forward.

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