WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for November 6

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Follow along with our live WWE Raw review – even if Raw is airing via tape delay tonight!

Previously on WWE Raw, Braun Strowman respawned and annihilated the entire Miztourage. Two title matches were booked, and zero titles changed hands. Finn Balor defeated Cesaro before being assaulted by Kane – again. Stephanie McMahon made everything about her. And Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson died and were replaced by Tex Ferguson and Chad 2 Badd.

This week, Raw is “live” via tape delay. The majority of WWE superstars from both Raw and SmackDown are in the United Kingdom right now. Thanks to the time difference between Manchester, England, and the United States, the show will be over for a few hours by the time it hits the air stateside.

And if you haven’t been paying attention for the past few years, whenever Raw (or SmackDown) tape in the UK, they’re usually less than stellar episodes. With spoilers getting out for the taping, plus jet lag and travel fatigue, it seems that WWE plays it safe for the UK tour. Nothing major usually happens, and it’s just an episode that’s there.

So what’s in store this week? Intercontinental Champion The Miz is treating the WWE Universe to a special edition of Miz TV. His guest? Kurt Angle, the Raw GM. After Angle refused to allow Miz to leave early last week, Braun Strowman appeared and beat down The A-Lister and company. Is there any doubt that Miz is a little peeved about being forced to stick around just to get a beating?

There’s also the world’s greatest match of all – a Guitar on a Pole match. (Please note the heavy sarcasm I’m using there.) After a few weeks of projectile produce and el kabongs with some six stringers, Jason Jordan and Elias will finally settle things in the ring. Uh, in a terrible gimmick match. Hey, at least there will be plenty of things to move onto for both superstars!

Raw also has to deal with the rapidly approaching Survivor Series. Alicia Fox is the captain of the women’s team, and only Nia Jax is joining her thus far. And Kurt Angle is leading the men’s squad, selecting Braun Strowman as his teammate. Each team still needs three other superstars. Will any spots be filled tonight?

Related Story: WWE Raw: 5 Predictions for November 6, 2017

Please follow along with our live updating WWE Raw review right here, starting at 8 p.m. ET.

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Miz TV with the GM

It didn’t take long for the UK crowd to get their chants in. It’s kind of their gimmick, you know? But “Who’s your daddy?” chants? Eh. Since it came from The Miz addressing Baron Corbin about their Survivor Series match, I’ll let it slide. Especially because it seems like Miz and Corbin are the only champions actually trying to build to their Survivor Series match. And Miz’s promo was absolutely great, so overall it’s a plus for this segment.

Then Miz pivots and brings out his guest for Miz TV – Kurt Angle. It’s all just a way to build to Survivor Series, and it takes a lot longer than it should. There’s a bunch of “Lets check out the video!” spots here. As if Raw wasn’t repetitive enough, we get to watch the original over and over instead of just lame copies of the original.

The only real notable part of this episode of Miz TV was Kurt referring to SmackDown as the B-show. Ooh, them’s fighting words, Angle! This brings up the siege again, and Miz says he thinks SmackDown may be preparing another one after Daniel Bryan was assaulted by Kane last week.

Eventually, things come around to “Kurt is trying to take out Miz and the Miztourage” as expected. Because Miz believes Angle intended for Strowman to attack them all last week. And poor Curtis Axel is out there doing his best Joel Gertner impression to sell the beating. Angle says he had nothing to do with it, and his putting Strowman on the Survivor Series team was unrelated.

But Strowman did negotiate one thing in return for joining Team Raw: a match with The Miz, which will happen later tonight.

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Guitar on a Pole Match

Elias vs. Jason Jordan

Result: Jason Jordan defeated Elias

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Man, Elias is so good at this sports entertainment thing. “I am destiny manifested” is the greatest nerd joke I’ve heard in wrestling in a long time. And I will never disapprove of jokes at Noel Gallagher’s expense. Oh, and “Wonderwall” is a dumb song. Such a good intro – it was like a reverse Beatlemania. ELIASMANIA. RUNNING WILD ON YOUR HEARTSTRINGS.

But that was basically the end of the good things in this part of the show. Anything on a Pole matches are pretty bad. Remember Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss in a Kendo Stick on a Pole match? What about the Judy Bagwell on a Pole match from WCW? There are no 5 star classics in that category.

The rules of this one stated that the winner was whoever used the guitar as a weapon first. So it was basically a regular old wrestling match, occasionally interrupted by attempts to climb the turnbuckle. And we’ve seen this match a few times already. Nothing ground breaking here.

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/927711226670354432

Eventually, Elias grabs his beloved guitar, but is unable to use it. Credit to WWE for at least stretching this one out a bit – it would have been easy for Jordan to counter the first attempt at using the weapon and winning right then and there. But there was a bit more actual wrestling before Jordan introduced the guitar to his opponent’s back and earned the victory.

Hopefully this feud is laid to rest, and both superstars move on to bigger and better things.

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The Bar Confronts Kurt Angle

Cesaro and Sheamus take issue with the fact that Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose haven’t been made to defend their titles, like Alexa Bliss and The Miz last week. The Bar feels Angle is showing favoritism – he forces them to ask for a title match if they want it so bad. They do, and he grants it. But it’s their last chance at the titles.

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Asuka vs. Stacy Coates

Result: Asuka defeated Stacy Coates via submission

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

Did you watch Raw last week? Guess what? If you did, you saw this match already!

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The greater WWE Universe still needs to be introduced to Asuka, so the more opportunities she gets, the better. And the more opportunities she gets to really demonstrate her dominance, even better.

I still maintain that Asuka’s debut has been booked completely backwards. She really would have been better served by debuting with a couple of squash victories before having a hard fought match against a more established talent.

After the match, Alicia Fox appears backstage to name Asuka to the Raw Survivor Series team. It’s a pretty obvious choice, but I also feel like there’s going to be some kind of shenanigans to make Asuka “lose” because that’s right out of WWE’s playbook.

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Titus Worldwide Has A Few Words

Titus O’Neil apparently has a death wish, because he’s challenged Samoa Joe to a match. Make it a win, big fella!

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Titus O’Neil (w/ Apollo Crews) vs. Samoa Joe

Result: No contest

Rating: N/A

Well, that didn’t go very well. Titus hadn’t even made it two feet down the ramp when Joe attacked from behind, applying the Coquina Clutch at the bottom of the ramp. Joe enters the ring and proclaims his dominance, then issues a challenge because he’s “not done yet.”

And who would answer his challenge…

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Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor

Result: Double Count Out

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Yeah, Joe’s longtime NXT nemesis Finn Balor came down to answer the call. I guess Finn forgot that a few weeks ago he answered Kane’s challenge and it didn’t go so well for him. Oh, well, I’m sure this will be different!

From bell to bell, this was a great match for both superstars. Joe needed to look like a beast – like it was prior to his injury break. After murking Titus and Apollo before that scheduled match, here The Destroyer controlled the majority of the contest. Joe’s power advantage was clearly evident throughout.

Not a fan of the description, “deceptively quick” that Booker T used. I’ve been described as deceptively quick, and it’s code for, “Wow, I can’t believe this fat guy is able to walk, let alone run quickly!”

For Balor, on the other hand, he got to look like one of the toughest guys in WWE. Not many superstars could withstand a beatdown from Samoa Joe, let alone come back from one. But there was Balor, with a resilience not seen since the heyday of guys like Kane & the Undertaker.

At the end of the match, both superstars were counted out. But they refused to fight, and brawled up and down the ramp. Kurt angle helped to break things up, then proclaimed both men would be joining him on the Survivor Series team. One more flying attack from Balor would occur before the segment ended, and wow, what a team!

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Bo Dallas, Inspirational Once Again

The Inspirational Bo Dallas was always one of my favorite characters in NXT/WWE. To get a taste of that back is great. Bo – and Axel – try to convince The Miz that he’s got what it takes to defeat Braun Strowman. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha…

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Kurt Angle Completes His Team

After unsuccessfully trying to get Daniel Bryan on the phone to apologize, Kurt Angle is joined by Jason Jordan backstage. Angle says he knows it may come across as favortism, but he names Jordan to the fifth spot on the Survivor Series team. Jordan is thrilled, Kurt looks like a proud papa, and Booker T loses his mind.

Let’s just point out that these Survivor Series teams look pretty, pretty, pretty good. Angle, Strowman, Balor, Samoa Joe, and Jordan against Shane, Nakamura, Orton, Roode, and one other? Whoooo, boy. I’m guessing AJ Styles will be the fifth on SmackDown if he doesn’t win his championship match against Jinder Mahal tomorrow night.

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Bayley and Sasha Banks Campaign

Mike Rome is joined by two of the “most popular superstars in WWE today,” and he may want to reign in the enthusiasm a little bit. Anyway, The Hugger and The Boss want to be considered for the Survivor Series team. There’s two spots left, why not them?

Neither superstar is particularly great on the mic, so this is a little awkward. But the gist of it is that they think Alicia Fox is too enamored with “shiny objects” to objectively choose a team. So it’s up to them to show her that they belong. Okay, then.

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Nia Jax & Alicia Fox vs. Sasha Banks & Bayley

Result: Sasha Banks & Bayley defeated Nia Jax & Alicia Fox via submission

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

Interesting to announce Nia Jax first, then Balyey and Sasha, then Foxy last even though she’s teaming with Jax. I don’t get it at all, but whatever. Not the end of the world. Just weird.

Before the match starts, somehow commentary gets on a kick about marching bands, and Booker T says he was the toughest drum major who ever lived. Hmm. First off, why are we talking about marching bands? Because Alicia Fox has a hat? Second, Booker, you aren’t even the toughest drum major currently employed by WWE. That would be RD “Archibald Peck” Evans, currently a member of the creative team.

Getting into this match, though, Sasha and Bayley did a pretty poor job of stating their case to join the team. Bayley, especially, spent the vast majority of her time in the ring getting whupped. But after a while, she was able to finally tag out, and Sasha Banks did all the work.

A brief melee with all four superstars led Foxy to try and steal a victory with a rollup, but Sasha wiggled free. She transitioned right into the Banks Statement, and Alicia quickly tapped out.

After the match, Fox grabbed a mic and told Sasha that not only did she need her on her team, she wanted her on her team. So one of the remaining two spots are taken now. Interestingly, Bayley was not chosen – yet. Maybe we’re getting Dana Brooke on the team?

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Braun Strowman vs. The Miz (w/ Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel)

Result: Braun Strowman defeated The Miz via disqualification

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

I have one simple request: If Raw is going to be three hours, can we fill that time with something other than the same video packages two, three, or four times? I get it, the production team is great at making these video recaps. Sometimes they are the best part of the show! But watching the exact same thing over and over again really makes watching a three hour Raw seem like a chore.

When everything finally gets going again, it’s great. Why wouldn’t it be? Strowman and The Miz are two of the best, most consistent performers on Raw week in and week out. Everything about this was great. Starting with The Miz’s entrance, where he was much less cocky and arrogant than usual, going into the attempted mind games by The Miztourage, it was almost the perfect story.

Watching Strowman just rag doll the Intercontinental Champion was fun and all, but why not just make this a title match if the finish was going to be a DQ? I’m pretty sure we all know how I feel about champions losing non-title matches – just put the championship on the line and have the DQ end it.

The sequence with Kane and Strowman was interesting, but I’m not necessarily thrilled about where it’s going. The obvious thing is Kane putting Strowman over, but who knows if WWE will do the obvious thing? Still, it’s a great display of strength and power from both monsters, and Strowman putting the exclamation point on The Miz at the end was a great cherry on top of the whole thing.

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The Shield Address Their Upcoming Title Defense

This was two minutes of weird, shoehorned in references to England, Rollins acting as a real “Be A Star” babyface, and Renee Young doing the Shield pose. So, overall, it was good? I’m sorry, I just don’t even have the words for this. Just get in the ring and wrestle.

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Enzo Amore vs. Pete Dunne

Result: Pete Dunne defeated Enzo Amore via pinfall

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

On the one hand, the cynic in me knows that Pete Dunne (and the rest of the UK Division showing up on 205 Live this week) only showed up because WWE didn’t fly any other cruiserweights to the UK. On the other hand, THE BRUISERWEIGHT JUST SHOWED UP ON RAW.

Quick, when was the last time you heard someone describe an Enzo promo as “interminable”? Oh, man, this was terrible. He had been on a roll lately with some more focused material, but this was insane rambling at its finest (worst?). It was ridiculous, with the little kid conversation, and I swear if I heard, “I says to him, I says to him…” one more time I was going to snap.

After both Corey Graves and Booker T begged for the mic to be cut, Kalisto came down to the ring – and immediately sat down at ringside. Way to look tough, bud. While Enzo was roasting Kalisto, PETE DUNNE’S music hit. Kurt Angle came out first to introduce him, and the match was on.

Once Dunne rocked Enzo with that first forearm to the jaw, I can guarantee anyone watching Raw who didn’t know who he was became a fan real quick. It wasn’t the greatest match in the world, but it was a heck of a way to introduce Dunne to the WWE Universe at large.

Kalisto made his presence felt by preventing Enzo from getting a dirty victory, alerting the referee that Amore had his feet on the ropes. While Enzo was distracted, Dunne recovered to hit the Bitter End, his pumphandle flatliner, for a victory in his debut.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Champion vs. Champion

I know I said earlier in this review that I love the videos WWE’s production team creates for various feuds. But I feel like the Brock/Jinder rivalry is just so silly that not even a great video package can save it.

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And Lesnar never really being around hasn’t helped the build of this one. So the video really only covers the same thing as previous weeks, because there’s no new material!

I feel like right now, it’s about 50/50 as to whether Jinder makes it to Survivor Series as WWE Champion. On one hand, it’s a dumb match with Lesnar, and it’s going to be bad, and there’s no good way to end the match.

And wouldn’t an AJ Styles/Lesnar match be much better, even with no build?

On the other hand, why would WWE waste all this time and effort building to Jinder/Brock just to pull the rug out at the last moment?

Alexa Bliss, History Revisionist

Look, I like Alexa Bliss as much as the next WWE fan. But Miss Five Feet of Fury needs to step off Charly Caruso. Charles is great at these segments, isn’t she?

But Bliss is a revisionist, as stated above. All she wants to do is put herself over – understandable – and put everyone else down. She doesn’t let silly things like facts get in the way of her narrative. Who needs those?

Charly gets admonished for trying to add in facts – because she’s a professional journalist – and the end result is Alexa looking like she’s grasping at straws for talking points.

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WWE Raw Tag Team Championship Match

The Shield (Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins) (c) vs. The Bar (Cesaro & Sheamus)

Result: The Bar defeated The Shield via pinfall to become new WWE Raw Tag Team Champions

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

As someone who knows literally nothing about soccer (besides no hands!), I absolutely did not get the hatred for Cesaro and Sheamus when they removed their ring jackets. Apparently, it was Liverpool gear, and Manchester hates Liverpool? Well, I’m glad the live crowd got it.

Unsurprisingly, this was a really really really good match. These two teams are very familiar with one another. In fact, they may not be capable of having a bad match with one another.

However, the bigger story here is that a WWE Raw Tag Team Championship match was interrupted by The New Day for about five minutes. Their music hit, they showed up in the crowd, and literally all four participants in the match froze for the duration. Are you kidding me?! Weird circumstances or not, you keep going until the bell.

So during that little break in the action, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E make sure everyone knows that it’s Raw, not SmackDown, that’s the B-show. That’s one way to win a war of words – deflect! But more importantly, they want everyone to know that after the siege two weeks ago, Raw‘s response was to do nothing at all. Not a good look, Red Team.

Kurt Angle hilariously calls for a “Code Blue,” which HA! Apparently, his big security plan was to get the entire Raw roster to march to ringside. Bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see how it pays off… And New Day declares “Pump Fake” and retreats.

In the middle of the chaos, a great title match ends out of the blue with Sheamus hitting a Brogue Kick on Rollins for the victory. Having a title change on a taped broadcast is a strange move, but credit to WWE for going with it, spoilers be damned.

Next: Top 10 Moments in WWE Survivor Series History

So Raw has another opportunity to retaliate against SmackDown tomorrow night. Will they finally strike back? Next week is the go-home for Survivor Series, so the card should finalize. What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE Raw?