WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for December 11

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This week on WWE Raw, all three members of The Shield will compete. Follow along with our live review as all the action unfolds.

Previously on WWE Raw, Roman Reigns successfully defended the Intercontinental Championship against Jason Jordan. Later, he indirectly cost his Shield teammates Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins the Raw Tag Team Championships. Paige returned to active competition and defeated Sasha Banks. And Matt Hardy is WOKEN.

This week, there’s already been a ton of matches announced for Raw. The big ones all involve members of The Shield. First up, Roman Reigns squares off against Cesaro. The Big Dog and the Swiss Cyborg are two big powerhouses, so this match should be really exciting. The Intercontinental Championship is on the line, adding a bigger prize than just bragging rights to the contest.

Next is Cesaro’s tag team partner Sheamus going one on one with Seth Rollins. These two have locked up several times in the past few months, but that hasn’t prevented the matches from being above average. With a rivalry over the tag titles still brewing, both superstars will be looking to pick up a momentum boosting victory.

Finally, Dean Ambrose and Samoa Joe will face off for the first time. Joe is directly responsible for Ambrose and Rollins failing to win the tag titles last week. Surely, the Lunatic Fringe will have revenge on his mind. But Joe is looking to run through Ambrose to get to Reigns. Who will prevail?

In other action, Kane and Braun Strowman will compete to see who is the true monster on Raw. Over the past several weeks, each competitor has tried to totally eliminate the other from existence. Chairs, garbage trucks, steel steps – everything has been in play. In late breaking news, it was revealed that the winner will face Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble. What will these two beasts do to each other with such huge stakes involved?

Related Story: WWE Bold Predictions: Turmoil Within The Shield?

Be sure to join us right here for our live WWE Raw review, starting at 8 p.m. ET.

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Samoa Joe One Step Ahead

Raw got started this week with a lengthy video recapping what’s been happening with The Shield over the past few weeks. After the video, Samoa Joe was already in the ring with a mic in hand, and things picked up in a hurry.

Joe went on to deliver one of the best promos of 2017. In fact, it could have been the absolute best promo of the year if not for the ridiculous cuts backstage to see Rollins, Ambrose, and Reigns watching on the monitor. It was jarring to go back and forth between a real classic promo to wacky Dean going to “find Roman.”

That minor misstep aside, Joe really brought it tonight. He’s always been great on the mic, but this was next level stuff. Everything was made abundantly clear, and you really want to see Joe tear it up with anyone in The Shield.

So, short version: Joe calls out Reigns by himself, since Joe doesn’t need anyone’s help to put him down. Roman comes down, starts to brawl, but whoops! There’s Cesaro and Sheamus, because Joe is a dastardly heel who’s also one step ahead of the competition. Rollins and Ambrose come down to try and even the odds, but by the end of the segment, the Hounds of Justice are laid out, and Samoa Joe stands tall thanks to The Bar.

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Bayley & Mickie James (w/ Sasha Banks) vs. Paige & Mandy Rose (w/ Sonya Deville)

Result: Paige & Mandy Rose defeated Bayley & Mickie James via pinfall

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Before the match, Paige and the rest of Absolution have a few words for their opponents. Paige reminds us that she took out Sasha Banks last week in her return to action, while Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville put in their two cents. I’ve been impressed with Rose and Deville on the mic so far – they never really had much chance to speak in NXT, so they’re both kind of wild cards in that respect.

Right off the bat, Bayley and Mickie take the early advantage. Interestingly, Paige threw Mandy Rose to the wolves outside the ring, leaving her to take the brunt of Bayley’s offense. With Mickie ready to attack Paige, it didn’t really matter, but the dynamic within Absolution is something to watch.

After the commercial break, there was no recap of just how Absolution took over, but there was Mandy in solid control over Bayley. Besides not letting everyone know what happened during the commercial, the camera work in this one was horrendous. Bayley started her comeback, but it was more important to show a wide shot of Sasha outside the ring than Bayley hitting a running elbow on Rose in the middle of the ring. It’s been a bit of a running theme lately, but it was really notable here.

Bayley spent much of the match as face in peril, but finally tagged out to Mickie James. It looked like Mickie had things well in hand, but as the referee pulled Bayley out of the ring, Paige hit a kick to Mickie’s head, allowing Mandy to pick up the pinfall victory.

Surprisingly, there was no interference of note from Sonya Deville or Sasha Banks – they were just there. Strange, but it is what it is. Not a bad match to start things off, even if a big chunk went unseen and unexplained.

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Woken Wisdom

Let’s be real: the change in gimmick for Matt Hardy was sorely needed. It became magnified once Jeff went out with his shoulder injury, but the Team Extreme version of the Hardy Boyz – though nice for a while – were played out. Fortunately for WWE and Matt, Impact dropped their claim to the gimmick, and here we are (with a subtle change from Broken to Woken for innovation’s sake, I guess).

Last week we got the initial Woken promo, and it was great. This week, uh, we got basically the same thing? There really wasn’t much difference here other than a fancy new “Woken” graphic with broken glass effects. Bray Wyatt said some stuff, Matt said some stuff, and the segment ended with the two laughing like maniacs.

Worse still, the commentary team doesn’t seem to know how to respond to Woken Matt. Corey Graves is doing his best to put the gimmick over, but Michael Cole and Booker T seem to be in the “it’s ridiculous so we’re not taking it serious” camp. That’s awful. Thankfully, the crowd is so into Woken Matt that it likely won’t matter.

Enzo Has Moved Up From Chicken

Enzo Amore and Drew Gulak are discussing the cruiserweight division. Apparently there’s another fatal four way match tonight to replace Rich Swann, so Enzo wants Gulak to be ready, and he mentions Nia Jax. Gulak thinks he means to be prepared for any opponent, even one as surprising as Nia might be. Enzo plays along, but that’s clearly not what he meant.

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Finn Balor vs. Curtis Axel (w/ Bo Dallas)

Result: Finn Balor defeated Curtis Axel via pinfall

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

After defeating Bo Dallas last week, this week Finn Balor moves up (or down? laterally?) to Curtis Axel, still in a neck brace. BUT IT’S A RUSE, and the neck brace comes off before the match. So much for that Joel Gertner cosplay.

BUT IT’S A DOUBLE RUSE, because as Axel takes off the neck brace Dallas attacks Balor before the bell. A quick double team puts Finn at a serious disadvantage. How can anyone come back from such a devastating onslaught?

Easy, it’s Curtis Axel. Former Intercontinental Champion or not, Axel has sadly been scraping the bottom of the Main Event/Superstars barrel for far too long. So the first ever Universal Champion doesn’t even really have to break much of a sweat to pull out a victory after a Coup de Grace.

One has to wonder what’s going on with Balor. Is he going to feud with The Miz when the A-Lister returns from filming The Marine 6: Tokyo Drift? It’s the only reason I can think of for a pair of matches against The Miztourage. But Balor is pretty clearly creatively treading water right now. It’s a real shame, because he’s capable of doing so much more than he’s gotten over the past few months.

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Kane Speaks

Hearing “Kane” and “Universal Champion” in the same breath is some kind of fresh hell.

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Seth Rollins vs. Sheamus

Result: Seth Rollins defeated Sheamus via pinfall

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Two former world champions. Two former Money in the Bank winners. A hot storyline that has captured the majority of the WWE Universe. How could this be a bad match?

The stipulation of banning each man’s partners from ringside helped this one a bit. Rather than wonder how Ambrose or Cesaro would come into play during the finish, you got to focus on a really good match with a really good story.

Sheamus spent the majority of the match working on Seth’s leg – as was astutely pointed out by commentary, Rollins has a history of knee injuries. It’s not out of place – The Celtic Warrior has a wide variety of leg-based offense, like the stretch muffler, and the cloverleaf. Yes, the cloverleaf works the back more so than the legs, but it does put some torque on the legs, too, so it works here.

And Rollins was at his best in selling the damage to the leg, too. A superplex followed by a literal one-legged falcon arrow? Crazy, but it was so good. I’m a mark for selling on offense, so of course that won me over.

I would have loved to see Rollins sell the leg on the superkick and his ripcord knee strike (at least he used the right knee for the attack), but I’ll take what I can get. And this was a great match.

Backstage, Dean Ambrose talks strategy with Renee Young before realizing it’s a bad idea to give away his secrets. Oh, that wacky Dean!

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Cedric Alexander vs. Mustafa Ali vs. Tony Nese vs. Ariya Daivari

Result: Cedric Alexander pinned Ariya Daivari to win the match

Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Even before the match started, Drew Gulak proved himself the MVP of the entire cruiserweight division. On commentary for this one as he awaits the winner, he referred to Booker T as “Mr. T,” turned his back on Mustafa Ali, and lovingly cheered his “good buddy” Tony Nese. We don’t deserve Drew Gulak, but I’m glad he’s here.

These fatal four way matches have been some of the best cruiserweight matches in WWE since the Cruiserweight Classic last summer. I don’t want to generalize, but even thought they’re “WWE matches,” it seems like the last few weeks have been more indy-styled in the match layout phase. There’s been a lot of strings of high spot-type moves – like the sequence that led to the commercial break tonight. That’s how these guys in this division made their names and reputations, so letting them do that on a more consistent basis is great for the brand.

I feel like the “second chance” moniker works not only for the competitors, but the writers, too. Prior to the weekend’s events, no one would have thought twice about Swann being in the title mix, but it would have been hard to argue against Cedric or Ali in there, too. This match helped that come to fruition.

And while a strong case could be made for Ali, there’s very few people out there who would say Cedric Alexander isn’t a star. He’s phenomenally talented, exciting to watch, and – when not stuck in a crazy girlfriend storyline – makes compelling television.

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Love is in the Air

You know what? I know last week I said I was on board for Nia Jax being a big softie outside the ring but a dominant force in it. But I’m doubling down – I’m loving this Nia-Enzo thing. I mean, who wouldn’t love Gulak’s PowerPoint presentations?

(And as much as I want to see Cedric Alexander as Cruiserweight Champion, Drew Gulak needs to be the one to dethrone Enzo. Let it happen, PLEASE.)

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WWE Intercontinental Championship Match

Roman Reigns (c) vs. Cesaro

Result: Roman Reigns defeated Cesaro via pinfall

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Two matches featuring The Shield vs. The Bar, and two fantastic matches. Man, this one was good. I’m kind of getting tired of saying “Roman Reigns proved once again that he’s one of the best in-ring performers in WWE today,” but Roman Reigns proved once again that he’s one of the best in-ring performers in WWE today.

We all know that Cesaro is in the upper tier of workers in the company, if not the world. But Reigns was right there with him the whole time. And again, it’s a very simple story in this one, much like Rollins-Sheamus earlier. Cesaro knows Reigns relies on his power, so the Swiss Cyborg zeroed in on the right arm. If Roman has to use one arm, his power is severely limited. It’s a great strategy.

And, you know, swinging him into the ringside barricade is a good way to accomplish that.

But Reigns did everything in his ability to work around it. Not only did he sell the arm throughout the match, he changed up his attack. When was the last time you saw Roman Reigns bust out a la magistral cradle? With his power compromised, he needed to go to technique. When that failed, he sucked it up and went for the big power moves, pain be damned.

Major credit to Cesaro, for looking like the world’s greatest submission specialist from bell to bell. Every time you turned around, Cesaro had another submission hold locked in. Fujiwara armbars, crossface – anything to punish the arm.

This one was great all the way through. The Intercontinental Championship open challenge has been terrific thus far, Cesaro really shined here, and Reigns continues to be better than many want to give him credit for. Awesome, awesome match.

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Braun Strowman Is Terrifying

I’ll be honest – most of the time when Braun Strowman speaks, all I hear is “BRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNN.”

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Asuka vs. Alicia Fox

Result: No match – Fox unable to compete

Rating: N/A

With Asuka in the ring, Alicia Fox’s music hit, but she never came down to the ring. Paige’s music then started, bringing out Absolution. Heading to the video tape, we see Foxy backstage being checked on by an official – apparently she’s injured and can’t compete.

So Absolution begins a march down to the ring, with Paige talking about how everyone of consequence in the division has been pushed aside – except Asuka. So Paige gives The Empress of Tomorrow a choice: either move aside, or be forced to move aside. Since Asuka doesn’t know how to back down, she attacks first.

And briefly, she has the upper hand. Mandy Rose went down with a big kick, as did Sonya Deville. Paige ended up in an armbar before the numbers game proved too much. But the three on one assault ended when the rest of the women’s division came out to attack Absolution.

Yes, everyone. Alexa Bliss, who had apparently been too scared to even stay on commentary the past two weeks. Alicia Fox, who was too injured to compete. Nia Jax, who must have lost track of Enzo for a while. And there’s Asuka, just accepting the help? It’s kind of a screwed up story at the moment, like the writers backed themselves into a corner. There’s too much going on with Absolution, so everything got melded together into one story now. And it’s too much at once.

We’ll see where this goes – perhaps a women’s Royal Rumble, since the same thing is happening on SmackDown Live right now with the Riott Squad? But as for tonight, it was a convoluted mess.

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Jason Jordan Fits Twenty Years of Temper Tantrums into One Segment

It took almost the full three hours for the Raw GM to show up, but he basically gets chewed out by his kid. Well, that was worth the wait. Angle gives it right back to him, so JJ pouts off. All because he wants to be annihilated by Samoa Joe? Sheesh.

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Dean Ambrose vs. Samoa Joe

Result: Samoa Joe defeated Dean Ambrose via submission

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Before the match really gets underway, Jason Jordan comes out to observe the proceedings. Of course, Joe did the same thing last week when Jordan faced Roman Reigns. It’s a bold strategy for the youngster, since Joe could very easily march up the ramp and destroy him before getting counted out.

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/940424636822536192

What I loved about the match is that crazy, lunatic, off the cuff Dean Ambrose is the guy who seemed to have a solid strategy in place to give himself a shot to beat Joe. That strategy? Go for the knees and take the big man down. If you’re on your back, you can’t really fight back.

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For a while, the match was great – at least on par with the Rollins-Sheamus match from earlier in the evening. But after the commercial break when Jordan got involved, it took a hit, because it didn’t need the interference. Sure, it led to some great spots – like the pair of suicide dives – but it was overbooking for the sake of overbooking.

If you want to build to Joe vs. Jordan, let Jason come out after this match hits its conclusion. If Joe is beating Ambrose, does it really make that much difference if Dean loses cleanly? It’s Samoa Joe – he’s billed as a near unbeatable monster. There’s no harm in Ambrose going down, then Jordan coming down to confront Joe.

Anyway, Ambrose passes out rather than taps out, which fits his character even if it’s becoming a played out cliche of a finish. Joe is on a roll right now, and is doing some of the best work of his career.

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Titus Worldwide

In a “oh man, these guys haven’t been on WWE Raw in weeks” segment, Dana Brooke joins Titus Worldwide as head statistician and leader of research and development. Okay. Apollo Crews is super excited, but Gallows and Anderson smell a couple of nerds and make their presence felt. Before anything goes down, everyone scatters at the sight of Braun Strowman, which is for some reason hilarious to me.

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Braun Strowman vs. Kane

Result: Double count out

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

For the umpteenth time, the ring gets reinforced for a Braun Strowman match. Haven’t we learned that it doesn’t work? If Braun wants to explode a ring, he’s going to explode a ring.

The stakes for this match were huge – the winner would receive a shot at Brock Lesnar and the Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble. With such a prize on the line, you would think picking up a victory would be first and foremost on the minds of both superstars.

Haha, of course not! This is a battle of the monsters, they just want to hurt each other. So the fight spills outside the ring, into the crowd, and both guys get counted out. No winner, two losers, and Brock Lesnar laughs because he’s got no challenger. (At least until it becomes a triple threat match.)

The match itself was not great. Remember how good Braun’s matches against Big Show were? This was the inverse – Kane may have had a great career, but he’s in politician mode now, while Big Show got himself into the best shape of his life. This was bound to be a disappointment.

But post match, there were some good things, and some bad. I hate hate hate that Kane got built back up as this big bad monster, only to be scared of Braun. Sure, let’s murder Finn Balor’s momentum to make freaking Kane look strong, only to have the payoff be “Kane runs from other big guy.” Great idea.

Counter that with Braun being the best version of Braun he could be – just total annihilation, brute force, incredible strength, and no fear. As much as Kane being a scaredy cat was bad for Kane, it did help Strowman out (not that he really needed it).

Next: 25 Greatest Pay Per Views in WWE History

What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE Raw? Sound off in the comments below!