WWE Raw: Live Updating Results, Highlights, and Analysis for October 30

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WWE Intercontinental Championship Match

The Miz (c) (w/ Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel) vs. Matt Hardy

Result: The Miz defeated Matt Hardy via pinfaln

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Raise your hand if you were expecting Jason Jordan to be the challenger tonight? I could picture the whole thing: Jordan goes up against Miz, Elias interferes to keep that feud going, as well as keep the strap on Miz. It almost writes itself.

To be honest, though, Matt Hardy as the challenger is intriguing. I’ve mentioned before that the Hardys are still great as a team, but their stamina for lengthy solo matches is a bit suspect. It’s not necessarily a bad thing- you just have to plot out the match to account for that – but it could limit things somewhat.

And with a lengthy commercial break in the middle of the match, it looks like the match was plotted out to account for potential stamina issues. Coming back from that commercial, it looked like Miz almost broke Matt’s neck with the elevated neckbreaker. It’s not a literal name for the move, Miz!

Once Matt cleared the cobwebs from that neckbreaker, things picked up in a big way. There were a couple of beautiful sequences in there – Matt set up the Twist of Fate, but Miz reversed it into a Skull Crushing Finale that got blocked. A Side Effect from Matt got a near fall. Then Matt hit a picture perfect moonsault (though it looked like he popped his kneecap on the landing) that also only scored a two count.

Matt finally hit the Twist of Fate, but Miz was able to roll under the ropes. By the time Matt got to him, Miz had recovered enough to hit a Skull Crushing Finale for the victory and successful title defense. It was a solid match with some stiff looking bumps, definitely better than I expected.

Boy, Kurt is in a Bad Mood (part 2)…

Alexa Bliss tries to butter up Angle, but he’s having none of it. Gotta respect a dude who can keep his eyes on the task at hand when his subordinates are trying to manipulate him. Anyway, Kurt decides that, since Alexa did nothing during the siege last week, she’s going to defend her Raw Women’s Championship against Mickie James. (Kurt could also be upset about all the lamer and lamer old person jokes Alexa keeps tossing Mickie’s way, we’ll never know.)