WWE RAW 11/4/2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show where blatant outside interference that directly impacts the winners of two No. 1 contender's matches is just something we all have to live with because THERE ARE NO DISQUALIFICATIONS! You can tell wrestling is a backwards form of entertainment because it's 2024 and they still haven't instituted replay review. Anyway, this week saw IYO SKY and Damian Priest earn the right to challenge for the respective top singles titles on the red brand, which we have a lot of complicated feelings about that we'll get into in this column. We'll also talk the Wyatt Sicks kidnapping Miz, the messed up relationship between Sami Zayn and The Usos, and more!

Actually the only thing we're not really going to get to is the match between Chad Gable and Dragon Lee, which was just good and fun and there's really nothing else to say. Go check it out if you haven't seen, or read what happened on our "Raw" results page. Or alternately, stay here and dive into the opinions of the WINC staff as we lay out three things we hated and three things we loved about the 11/4/24 episode of "WWE Raw."

I can appreciate WWE actually acknowledging Liv Morgan's limited amount of defenses she's had thus far as Women's World Champion with Adam Pearce creating the No. 1 Contender's Battle Royal. Much of that, though, was mitigated by the fact that Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez were being set up as the next challengers for a completely different title – that being Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill's Women's Tag Team Championship.

There was too much trying to be accomplished in this one segment and it became hard to follow what was going on, especially when you consider that it was the opener for the show and was meant to set the tone for what was to come. It wasn't helped by Morgan spending the first couple minutes of this promo bragging about everything she's accomplished over the past few weeks, which while an effective way to get heat for her, only added to the confusing nature of everything with how much was being thrown at the audience at once. Morgan's promo would've been much more effective if it had been scaled back, and was just meant to be a way to set up the No. 1 Contender's Battle Royal.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

I've been watching wrestling for more than 20 years now, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen a good battle royal. That's not to say it can't be done, but it's hard; one of the reasons the Royal Rumble match has been such a success over the years and decades is because it provides much-needed structure to a type of match that too often becomes formless and incoherent, particularly given the time constraints of TV. This week's battle royal on "WWE Raw" was unfortunately more of the usual, and while it's undeniable that the right person won, it's unclear to me why we had to take such a boring path to get there.

Don't get me wrong, there was some storytelling going on. Pure Fusion Collective got into it with Katana Chance and Kayden Carter, Ivy Nile eliminated her old friend Maxxine Dupri and was eliminated in turn by her latest rival, Zelina Vega, and the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions straight-up got pulled out of the ring by Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, who weren't in the match. That said, everyone else was just kind of there, including the runner-up, Lyra Valkyria, who WWE doesn't seem to want to do anything with aside from having her finish in second place. Even IYO SKY, who won the damn thing, didn't really have anything going on in this match from a story perspective, especially because the person holding the title she's now going to challenge for is apparently feuding with the tag champs instead.

And beyond all that, why are we even doing a battle royal anyway? We just finished mini-tournaments to determine No. 1 contenders for both sets of men's tag titles, and the same thing happened for the Intercontinental and United States titles recently, too. Can we not just do the same thing for the women, run a few triple threats and get some decent matches out of it? You'd get even more storytelling opportunities that way, too. Not sure why WWE punted on that option in favor of a battle royal, of all things — did they just really want the optics of having the entire "Raw" women's roster wrestle in Saudi Arabia?

Oh, and by the way, just give IYO the belt. Enough is enough with this Morgan run; Rhea Ripley is out of action and we need a champion who actually defends. If it's me, I'm strapping up SKY again and giving Morgan and Rodriguez the women's tag titles, which are much better suited to what they do on "Raw" and frees up Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill to be singles wrestlers again. It's almost election day; end our long national nightmare.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Part of what made the late Bray Wyatt's work in WWE so revered was the level of narrative and imaginary ambition he put into the lore of his characters and storylines, and the Wyatt Sicks continues to come across as the perfect homage in that regard. Bo Dallas and co. finally made it clear this week why they have been so fixated on The Miz in a very Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight"-coded vignette. Like the scene where Heath Ledger's Joker broadcast his abduction of a Batman-styled street vigilante, Dallas unmasked The Miz as he sat strapped to a chair mere hours after the Wyatt Sicks X account promised to "make him understand."

That they did, with Dallas clarifying that he never wanted Karrion Kross or The Final Testament, but it was always the former WWE Champion he they wanted to wreak pain on for all he had done in the past. While Miz was unable to see why he was in a chair and at the ire of the Sicks, us watching the show got a glimpse of excellent reasoning, with a brief clip of Miz making an unfulfilled promise of success to his forgotten Miztourage, Dallas and Curtis Axel, from 2017. It's always good fun when WWE actually remembers what came before, and that's even more the case when it explains what had until this point seemed like a random disdain for Miz – granted, that has been much the story of his career both in kayfabe and originally real life. But the fact that Dallas' role in the Miztourage was, until Uncle Howdy, the last time he had been prominently used on TV, and Miz was the only one to find success after the group was formed, is both compelling in itself and with the lore that Wyatt originally established for his masked characters. Howdy in many ways appears to be a derivative of The Fiend, a character purposed to gain vengeance on those who'd harmed Wyatt before, so everything about this segment and storyline meshes well with the essence of the Wyatt Sicks. Let's just hope this can be a creative vision sustained to break the cycle that birthed the characters to begin with.

Written by Max Everett

I'm a little late on this since their official return to "Raw" came almost a month ago already but given their status as No. 1 contenders for the WWE World Tag Team Championships, the switch back to the War Raiders name by Erik and Ivar deserves some love. If it were only about, you know, NOT BEING ACTUAL VIKINGS ANYMORE, that would be great in and of itself. But both men look at ease and happy since the change, they're in the title picture, surely rejuvenated as professionals, and more than anything else, they're healthy. It cannot be overstated how important it is that both of these two are healthy after serious injuries jeapordized their careers. There was no guarantee that either of them would see the ring again after spinal surgery for Ivar in May and a neck fusion for Erik in late 2023. So to see them back at it, sans the viking gear (for the most part), under a name that doesn't invoke cringe from one and all, with the crowd chanting "War!" just makes me happy.

These guys are nothing if not resilient. I mean, surviving a main roster debut as The Viking Experience alone is more than commendable. Even He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, still in charge at the time, must have realized how bad that was because it only lasted a week. Of course, The Viking Raiders wasn't much better (and "The Experience" remained as the name of their finisher) but anything was at least a little better. And it doesn't matter now anyway, because The War Raiders are back.

Now calling their finisher "War Machine" harkens back to their pre-WWE runs in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and elsewhere and I think the former Hanson and Rowe are set for a well-deserved title run before too long at all. Throw the horns up, people. The (war) raid is on!

Written by Jon Jordan

The opening match of WWE Crown Jewel sparked a pertinent question for this week's "WWE Raw" after Sami Zayn knocked Roman Reigns out with a Helluva Kick. And the question was posited bluntly by Jey Uso Monday night: Did he mean to do it?

Obviously, for us watching the show, it was clear that he hadn't in fact meant to do it. But you do have to accept that wrestlers have a different depth of perception than thus in kayfabe, it just makes it easier. Within the 'fabe, however, it was a valid question; after all that Reigns had put Zayn through, a kick in the face probably would have been tempting when he got back in the ring. But as he rightfully pointed out, he didn't need to come out and be put on trial as he wasn't the subservient "Honorary Uce" anymore, he already had his trial, his verdict, and still had hoops put in front of him to jump through. He didn't even need to come out at Crown Jewel, but he said he did so purely out of his love for Jey (Aw!), and he reminded Jimmy that they were the original brothers from another mother, that it was Jey that originally had no love for the outsider, but it was Jimmy that kicked him in the face at last year's Royal Rumble.

Jimmy gave a blunt response, sarcastically asking if Zayn wanted an apology, and like the caporegime who whacked his soldier Jimmy made it clear it weren't his call to make. "I'm not the bad guy here," he snapped, both suggesting Zayn made his bed when he moved on the family and that he was just doing his duty to Reigns. If it were up to Jimmy, clearly, there would be no reconciliation with his former adopted brother, and that's where his twin brother came in. The one that for so long insisted Zayn wasn't a member of the family, specifically because he wasn't blood, pushed back on that ideology and admitted he was wrong, inviting him back to truly hash things out with Reigns on "WWE SmackDown."

The landscape has completely changed since Zayn's betrayal of The Bloodline, and he is no longer fighting to ensure the empire fell. It already happened, and Solo Sikoa's Bloodline rose in its stead. The Usos' blood brother has already shown that it doesn't matter the DNA shared, both in his betrayal of Jey, Jimmy, and Roman, and in his own recruitment of outsiders in the Sons of Tonga. It's time for the core group of The Bloodline, from its strongest era and a time of great cohesion as a family unit, to put pride and ego aside for the sake of survival. And that in itself, combined with what already know about Reigns' character, is a compelling enough hook for this Friday's show.

Written by Max Everett

I know we discussed this over the weekend following Seth Rollins' win at Crown Jewel over "Big" Bronson Reed, but I feel as though it's necessary to bring up again after Reed's involvement in this week's main event. Why on earth would you booked Reed to absolutely demolish Rollins, put him on the shelf for quite some time, have him lose at the premium live event to a guy who is already a super established former champion (and someone he also squished literally six times in the middle of the ring), then have Reed interfere in the match he should have been in already? I guess just to prove a point? There's something off to me in Triple H's booking of Reed, and I just can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe give the guy some wins? The last time the "Big" one has scored any Ws has been against The Miz, which honestly isn't saying much. I really think he should have been the one to defeat Rollins at the PLE, then move on into this match, even if WWE was going to give Damian Priest the victory. It would give him some credibility in the wins/losses column, and Reed needs some credibility outside of just being a big monster at this point.

Reed solidified the fact he should have been in this match by not just attacking Rollins, but the other competitors as well. He hit a Death Valley Driver on Sheamus and hit a Tsunami on Priest, then followed it up with another on Sheamus. I have, word for word, "WHY WAS THIS MAN NOT IN THIS MATCH" written in my notes. He then went back after Rollins and sent him through the announce desk with a Tsunami, becoming the star of the bout within just a few minutes of action. We're obviously getting Reed versus Rollins again, I'd assume at Survivor Series, and while the match is likely to be excellent once again, it's the booking of a powerhouse like Reed that's astoundingly bad to me.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't at least mention how over I am with the Priest vs. Anyone in the Judgment Day storyline. Dominik Mysterio beat him last week to get in match, and now these two were facing off, once again, multiple times in this match. I'm hoping to the wrestling gods that nothing is run back with Mysterio and Priest, now that Priest is headed for GUNTHER with his shot at the World Heavyweight Championship, as it was Priest to break up the pin after Mysterio hit a frog splash and Sheamus, capitalizing off the Tsunami. I don't need to see anything Priest vs. Mysterio or Priest vs. insert-Judgment-Day-Member-here match on "Raw" again.

Written by Daisy Ruth