WWE Raw Recap, Grades & Opinion: October 14, 2019

WWE Raw Recap: October 14, 2019

A.K.A. The One With The Draft’s Second Half

Results:

Becky Lynch def. Charlotte, earning Raw the #1 pick in tonight’s draft
Andrade def. Ali
Viking Raiders def. Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler (c) to win the Raw Tag Team Championships
Aleister Black def. Eric Young
Ricochet def. Shelton Benjamin
Buddy Murphy def. Cedric Alexander
The Kabuki Warriors def. Lacey Evans & Natalya

Match of the Night: Viking Raiders def. Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler to become Raw Tag Team Champions

What a tag team title match. We knew that Roode & Ziggler were not long for the tag titles after dethroning Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins. Still, seeing the Viking Raiders have such a great performance gives us hope for the tag team division. Raw has a pretty good tag division right now, including the champs, The O.C., and Street Profits. Add in a few more teams, and this division has a chance to be special. Erik and Ivar are extremely athletic big men, and WWE let them shine in this match.

Three Thoughts:

The Battlelines Have Been Drawn

WWE finished up the draft on Monday night, and now the rosters are set. A full list of the draft breakdown can be found here. Some takeaways from the second night of the draft:

WWE seemingly is high on Andrade. Making him a first round pick shows he can be a future star for Raw, and Zelina will make sure no one forgets Andrade was a first round pick.
Raw is the Cruiserweight Graduation School, with picks like Buddy Murphy, Cedric Alexander and Humberto Carillo. Add in Rey Mysterio & Ricochet, and Monday nights have a ton of flippy stuff.
The reaction shots of the war rooms were really weird and out of place.
Miz and Samoa Joe were both steals.
The final pick of the night was Liv Morgan, and here is hoping that she uses her low pick as a reason to get a big push coming back on Raw.

Raid!

The Viking Raiders have finally made good on all of those squash matches. A big question looms now: can WWE book them properly as champions? They haven’t been given a ton of time to connect with audiences since their debut. The match they had to win the titles was great, and they got a big pop. WWE sometimes struggles to book dominant face tag teams, so how they handle Erik & Ivar going forward will be something to watch going forward.

Not Playing Nice

One of the biggest revelations on this week’s Raw is that Seth Rollins will battle the Fiend once again in Saudi Arabia. If it happens in Saudi Arabia on a show that lots of fans don’t watch, does it still count? Yes it does if it is a redo of WWE’s terrible Hell in a Cell booking. WWE had to go that route because they booked themselves in a corner before. And now, WWE has decided to do the match again even with the poor reception to the ending before. It all just seems ridiculous.

BREAKING: @WWERollins will defend his #UniversalTitle against #TheFiend @WWEBrayWyatt in a #FallsCountAnywhere Match at #WWECrownJewel! #RAW pic.twitter.com/CO72qr8q3c

— WWE (@WWE) October 15, 2019

The match will be Falls Count Anywhere, but it likely won’t end in the Firefly Funhouse. Rollins went into the Funhouse and attacked Wyatt, and literally burnt it down. It was meant to make Rollins look cool, but instead it made viewers sympathetic to Wyatt. Poor guy just can’t keep any of his houses from burning down.

#UniversalChampion @WWERollins is IN the #FireflyFunhouse and decided to #BurnItDown!!! Watch out, @WWEBrayWyatt! #RAW pic.twitter.com/3li0MRozeE

— WWE (@WWE) October 15, 2019

Grade: C+

An episode that was buoyed by some quality matches. The opener of Lynch-Charlotte was solid as can be expected from those two. A few more good tag matches added to the quality of the show. However, the rest of the show was pretty meh. It’s not a surprise that no storylines were really developed aside from the settling of the rosters with the draft. I expect the quality of the show to improve next week without so much admin.