Monday Night Raw Review - October 18, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Bianca Belair Confronted Raw Women's Champion Charlotte Flair

I appreciated the attempt in this segment to build to Belair vs. Flair in the main event, but it doesn't erase the fact that Belair did nothing to deserve a shot at the Raw Women's Championship. Flair was right when she said that it wasn't fair that Belair was getting two title shots in the same week. The mic work was decent, but had this segment not happened, nothing would have changed. This felt like it existed to kill time more than anything else.

Xavier Woods def. Jinder Mahal in a King of the Ring Semifinal Match

I'm not sure if this was mentioned on commentary, but the last time Woods and Mahal met in a tournament, it was the United States Championship tourney on SmackDown almost four years ago and Mahal beat Woods in the semifinals. I love that Woods got to avenge that loss here and make it to the finals, especially since I expected Mahal to advance instead. This was a solid match with good drama. Woods vs. Finn Balor in the finals is super interesting.

Austin Theory def. Jeff Hardy

This was more of a match than what we got between them last week as they received more time. It was well-wrestled and saw Theory score a second straight win over Hardy. I'm glad they resisted the urge to have Hardy get his win back. Instead, he laid out Theory afterward. There won't be a rubber match with Hardy heading to SmackDown. Theory has exceeded my expectations so far with his run on Raw in regards to how he's been booked. I honestly assumed he'd be relegated to Main Event, but that has yet to be the case.

WWE Champion Big E and Drew McIntyre def. Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode

I know McIntyre is headed to SmackDown this Friday and thus there's zero chance he wins the WWE Championship at Crown Jewel, but the build to this bout has been incredibly lazy. I believe it's a first-time-ever encounter and I'm looking forward to it on paper, but the "can they coexist?!" crap is so played out and WWE has been doing the same thing with these two since the feud started. Hell, they already beat Ziggler and Roode two weeks ago! This felt like deja vu despite being a perfectly solid match.

Mansoor def. Cedric Alexander

Alexander and Shelton Benjamin came out to the Hurt Business music for this match, but the funny thing is that they actually have yet to address their reunion with Bobby Lashley. It's been implied but not outright stated that they're back together. How lazy. Alexander and Benjamin beat Mansoor and Mustafa Ali in tag team action last week, so Mansoor got some revenge here. His post-match promo directed at Ali was more impressive than the match itself. The guy can talk. Hopefully he and Ali get their time to shine at Crown Jewel.

Goldberg and Bobby Lashley Exchanged Words

This was a fine way to offer some last minute hype and build for the bout between these two at Crown Jewel. Goldberg didn't have to be in the building for it since it was a side-by-side sit-down interview with the two of them in two different places. Unfortunately, everything they said sounded incredibly scripted. Like, more scripted than usual. I just got done praising Lashley's mic work last week in MVP's absence, but he made it way too obvious here that he was reading off a teleprompter and it didn't come off well.

Raw Tag Team Champions RK-Bro vs. The Street Profits Ended in a No Contest

I have no idea why WWE would give this match away on such short notice. Is the company seriously considering splitting up RK-Bro sometime soon and taking the titles off them at Crown Jewel? I know Riddle and Randy Orton have been partners for the better part of the past six months, but I still feel like it's too soon for that. This was a fun match while it lasted and I'd like to see a rematch with the titles on the line at some point now that Street Profits are back on Raw. I'm so ready for this rivalry between AJ Styles and Omos and RK-Bro to be over.

Doudrop def. Shayna Baszler in a Queen's Crown Semifinal Match

This was teased two weeks ago when Baszler beat Dana Brooke and Doudrop confronted her afterward. Both women are very talented and this could have been a fun, hard-hitting affair, but I should have expected this would be a nothing match because of how badly booked this tournament has been up to this point. They weren't given much time at all and the crowd sat on their hands for it. I like Doudrop, but she's the same person who lost to Charlotte Flair in roughly 90 seconds a few weeks ago, so it's hard to care about her making the finals when it really should have been Baszler given the tear she's been on lately in  addition to, oh, I don't know, being the Queen of Spades.

Finn Balor def. Mace

I guess WWE felt the need to do this match before Mace heads to SmackDown this Friday thanks to the Draft even though no one was clamoring to see Balor against Mace in the first place. Nonetheless, it was short and sweet and gave Balor a momentum boost before he faces Woods in the finals of King of the Ring this Thursday. There is no doubt in my mind that Balor is winning unless he's turning heel, which I wouldn't be opposed to because he was such a strong heel in NXT.

Bianca Belair def. Raw Women's Champion Charlotte Flair by Disqualification

This is only the third singles match these two have had against each other if you include their encounter from NXT early last year. Their last one-on-one match two weeks ago ended in a non-finish, so I was hoping this would be better than that. But nope, we got another disqualification, which was supremely disappointing considering they teased a title change. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome they got as much time as they did in the main event slot and they killed it, but that finish was weak and did nothing to leave me looking forward to the Triple Threat at Crown Jewel more than I was before.

Overall Show

Raw continues to be all over the place at the moment. King of the Ring and Queen's Crown have given more matches more meaning, but they've been booked very differently, to say the least. This show still features matches that are way shorter than they should be despite it being a three-hour program. On the bright side, the build for Crown Jewel was well done and it's the first Saudi Arabia show they've done that I actually have a shred of hope for. Fingers crossed Raw will improve once the new rosters go into effect for next week's "season premiere," but I'm not holding my breath.

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