Monday Night Raw Review - November 16, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

WWE Champion Randy Orton, The Miz and John Morrison Interrupted Drew McIntyre

We've heard practically everything from McIntyre and Orton by this point, but this was still a solid segment that featured quality mic work from everyone involved and effectively built toward the night's WWE Championship main event. I didn't mind the back-and-forth between McIntyre and Miz, but the issue is that it pretty much confirmed Miz wasn't cashing in the Money in the Bank contract successfully on this show. Either way, as tired as I am of Orton vs. McIntyre, Miz and The Fiend are making the WWE Championship picture more interesting at the moment.

Raw Women's Champion Asuka, Mandy Rose def. Lana and WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax

It made no sense for Raw's women's Survivor Series to face each other here, and it made even less sense for Lana to want to team with Baszler and Jax after everything they've done to her in recent months. The match was whatever and only further exposed Asuka as being an afterthought. As I've said before, I don't understand how losing every week is supposed to endear Lana to the audience as a babyface. Due to the attacks Rose and Brooke endured afterward, they'll be replaced at Survivor Series by Lacey Evans and Peyton Royce.

Raw Tag Team Champions The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) def. The Hurt Business (Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin)

The promo battle that preceded this match wasn't very good at all, but the match itself was as entertaining as their original encounter. They were once again given a ton of time and they made the most of it. These teams have excellent chemistry together, so I'd love to see them have more matches together. The Hurt Business will be champions eventually, but I'm glad New Day retained the titles because I've been looking forward to them vs. The Street Profits since it was announced.

RETRIBUTION (Mustafa Ali, T-Bar, Mace and Slapjack) def. Riddle, Keith Lee, Sheamus and Braun Strowman

It was way more logical for the members of a Survivor Series to attempt to work together ahead of the event instead of face each other like we saw last week and even earlier on this episode. I couldn't care less about RETRIBUTION, but this was well-wrestled and the story it told was decent. Congrats to RETRIBUTION for finally winning something meaningful, but the faction still stinks and I'm not sure if this will be enough to salvage them.

Bray Wyatt def. The Miz

I believe Miz is the only person to lose to the Firefly Fun House version of Wyatt, now on two different occasions. He's lost far more matches than he's won in 2020, so I can't say I'm surprised. Speaking of Wyatt, I have no clue whether he's supposed to be a babyface or a heel, but I kind of like that he's a bit of both. His pairing with Alexa Bliss continues to the best thing on the show right now and the intensity Wyatt showed toward the end of his match with Miz was awesome.

Drew McIntyre def. Randy Orton in a No Holds Barred Match to Win the WWE Championship

The video package that aired halfway through the show promoting this match was fantastic. It really should have opened the episode because it made this main event feel like a bigger deal than it already was. After all, it isn't often the WWE Championship is defended on Raw, not to mention that the winner of this matchup would advance to Survivor Series to represent Raw against Roman Reigns. The No Holds Barred stipulation was a nice touch and added to my enjoyment of the outing. They constantly kept things moving, made excellent use of their environment, and stepped up their game big time from the dud they had at Hell in a Cell. I was hoping for a title change and I'm happy we got it, just because Orton had no business being the champion in the first place and it was a big moment to close out Raw for a change.

Overall Show

WWE heavily hyped those two title matches coming into this edition of Raw and both bouts delivered. Combine that with how the format was streamlined with less filler and it made for a better show than usual. I've said quite a bit about Raw in recent months, but to give credit where it's due, this was a rock solid effort. The stuff with the women on this show did nothing for me, but everything else either held my interest or served a purpose. Props to the red brand for not completely boring me to tears this week and making me slightly more optimistic regarding Survivor Series than I was beforehand.