WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for January 1

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Follow along with our live WWE Raw review.

Previously on WWE Raw, it was Christmas Day, so nothing really important happened. Well, except for new tag team champions being crowned. And John Cena coming back. Oh, and Drew Gulak dressed as an elf. So, wow, I guess a lot happened.

Tonight, everyone’s nursing their New Year’s Eve hangover, as Raw rings in the new year another action packed episode. There’s been a pair of championship matches scheduled for this week. Plus, the build to the Royal Rumble continues.

In the first of the title matches, Roman Reigns will defend the Intercontinental Championship against Samoa Joe in a rematch from Christmas Day. But there’s a twist this time, since last week’s bout ended with Reigns getting disqualified for shoving an official. If Roman gets DQ’d again this week, he’ll lose the title as well. Samoa Joe excels at getting under an opponent’s skin. Can he work his magic to win gold?

The other title match is a Cruiserweight Championship clash. Cedric Alexander finally gets his opportunity to take the title from Enzo Amore. The Zo Train is sure to be hanging around, potentially giving Enzo the edge necessary to retain. But Enzo was reportedly hospitalized earlier in the day. Will Da Realest Guy be able to defend his title as scheduled?

Beyond announced matches, Brock Lesnar will be in the house for the first Raw of 2018. The Beast had a terrific 2017, winning the Universal Championship at WrestleMania and defending it against all comers since. But with a tough challenge coming up at the Royal Rumble, Lesnar will make his presence felt in Miami. Lesnar’s Rumble opponents, Kane and Braun Strowman, can’t be too far behind. What kind of chaos awaits the WWE Universe?

Related Story: Bold Predictions for WWE Week of January 1

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

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Cold Open? Sure, Why Not?

After a brief rundown of what’s ahead on tonight’s episode, Alexa Bliss is shown walking backstage to find Kurt Angle. Bliss is a little upset that she’s being forced into a non-title match against Asuka. And, honestly, why wouldn’t she be upset? Asuka has made a habit of kicking people’s heads off. The Goddess is nothing if not a survivalist. So trying to avoid the educated feet of The Empress of Tomorrow makes perfect sense.

Angle is having none of it, and tells Alexa to basically be thankful it’s not a title match. His music hits, and he’s off to the ring…

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Major Updates to the Women’s Royal Rumble Match

In the ring, Angle gets right to business. He announces the news from earlier in the day – John Cena is entering the Royal Rumble. But no one cares about the men’s Rumble match this year. It’s all about the first ever women’s Royal Rumble, and now we get some details confirmed for the first time.

The TL;DR version? Both Rumble matches will have the same rules. 30 participants, over the top rope eliminations – with both feet touching the floor – and the winner goes on to a championship match at WrestleMania. It’s nice to get this made official, and let the speculation of who the 30 women will be begin.

Before anything else happens, Cesaro and Sheamus interrupt the GM. They have a big problem with how last week unfolded – nepotism, favoritism, and all the other -isms you can throw out there. The Bar want a rematch, but Angle isn’t in a giving mood – they’ll get their rematch when he says so.

Out comes Jason Jordan to make some cracks about Cesaro’s mouth, because apparently he’s got a death wish. Angle says we settle things in the ring on WWE Raw, so Cesaro and Jordan need to get to settling things right now.

But before that can happen, out comes Seth Rollins, who tries to impart some wisdom to his new tag team partner and co-champion. It’s rich hearing Rollins of all people say, “Stop being so self absorbed.” But this is the world we live in in 2017 2018. Rollins basically tells Jordan he’s an idiot who’s going to lose, then Cesaro jumps Jordan from behind to prove that point as we head to commercial.

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Cesaro (w/ Sheamus) vs. Jason Jordan (w/ Seth Rollins)

Result: Jason Jordan defeated Cesaro via pinfall

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

I think part of why the WWE Universe hates Jason Jordan so much is due to how much he’s become a typical WWE superstar. What I mean by that is he’s seen his move set reduced to a handful of maneuvers that are all basically signatures at this point. Jordan may not be on the same level as his former partner Chad Gable when it comes to suplexes, but he’s still a technically gifted wrestler. Yet, it seems like all he does now is pick his opponent up and run him from corner to corner. It’s impressive, but not when you see it over and over.

And how about shoddy continuity? Last week, Jordan’s “injured knee” magically disappeared. Now, Cesaro immediately goes for a chop block on it, and it’s a big weakness again? I’m okay with changing things up in terms of long term booking, but at least watch the shows you’re producing. On the plus side, it makes Cesaro look like a genius for remembering that Jordan had a bum knee a few weeks back, and he’s focused on any weakness he can think of.

All that said, and as good as much of the match was, I don’t understand why WWE can’t come up with a better way to build to a tag team championship match than “split the teams into singles matches for a whole month.” I’m not going to complain about getting more Cesaro matches, not by a long shot. But I’d like to see him face a bigger portion of the roster at any given time.

Kudos to Jordan for selling the knee even on offense – that bridge on his rolling Northern Lights suplex was beautiful. But I think Cesaro winning would have done more storywise – Rollins flat out said he thought Jordan was losing. Now Seth has to eat crow, and entitled Jordan gets to say “I told you so.” If Cesaro won here, Jordan would be forced to show humility and actually listen to his more experienced partner.

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Roman Reigns is Ready

Sorry, but I don’t care what Reigns says – he’s not getting disqualified tonight.

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Bray Wyatt vs. Apollo Crews (w/ Titus O’Neil & Dana Brooke)

Result: Bray Wyatt defeated Apollo Crews via pinfall

Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars

Pretty sure Apollo Crews successfully connected with more offense in this match than he did in the entirety of 2017. Curious, though, how he got popped in the mouth while hitting a dropkick – did one of Bray’s dreadlocks whip him or something?

The worst part of watching weekly WWE programming is looking at a match and immediately knowing how it’s going to play out, just based on who’s involved and what they have going for them. Bray Wyatt has been feuding with Matt Hardy. It’s a whole thing where Wyatt helped whatever Hardy had lying dormant inside him become “woken.”

Apollo Crews helped Titus O’Neil recruit Dana Brooke to be the statistician for Titus Worldwide. And now, she has glasses and a clipboard.

Because of the inequality between the stories, you can’t possibly expect Crews to put up a big fight. It may be a decent match, but there’s no chance for Apollo to do anything – unless Hardy shows up for interference. But Bray, because of how seemingly important the “Woken” Matt Hardy thing is, has to be the stronger superstar here.

The match was a lot more competitive than I would have anticipated, but it still played out exactly to form. Even a momentary distraction by Brooke wasn’t enough for Crews to capitalize on. After the match, Woken Matt pops up on the Titantron to freak out Bray, which is no small feat.

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Chicken Soup for The G

Well, I guess Enzo is unavailable for his title defense. Nia Jax must really love the guy, because given an ultimatum by Alexa Bliss, Jax chooses Enzo. That chicken soup looked delicious, though.

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Alexa Bliss vs. Asuka

Result: Asuka defeated Alexa Bliss via submission

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

Going into this match, there were three possible outcomes. Either a champion was going to lose a non title match, WWE was going to throw away a winning streak that has lasted over two years, or something was going to happen to cause a non finish. Which one seemed most likely?

After a bit of a technical showcase from both superstars, it looked like the third option was on tap. Alexa bailed out and regrouped on the arena floor, but wouldn’t get back into the ring. The crowd – notably quiet up to this point – was not happy, and let a chorus of boos fly.

Well, sure, Alexa has been the standout in the Raw women’s division for much of 2017, and Asuka is the one poised to take over from her. Not to mention this was billed as a “WrestleMania worthy match” if the title were on the line. I’d be upset with a bait and switch, too.

Thankfully, after the commercial break Bliss was back in the ring. And somewhat surprisingly, she was in control, putting Asuka in the most trouble she’s been in since joining NXT. For something like that, it may have been beneficial to promote the match ahead of time more. This match was announced early Monday afternoon – why not hype it for a week and get more people interested?

The end of the match had some great moments, but it took way too long to get going. The first half of the match was basically “Alexa is afraid.” We knew that already from the backstage segments – we didn’t need to waste half the match hammering that home. A dead crowd didn’t help matters, and a fairly obvious outcome was just icing on the cake.

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Samoa Joe Cares Not For Your Domestic Arrangement

If Roman doesn’t finish Samoa Joe himself, I think Renee Young may take a crack at him. And hell hath no fury yada yada yada…

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Braun Strowman vs. Rhyno (w/ Heath Slater)

Result: Braun Strowman defeated Rhyno via pinfall

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

Braun Strowman must have read our Best and Worst of the Raw brand article last week. He’s not happy with being Superstar of the Year for 2017 – he’s already putting in a statement for 2018.

Before we get into how good Braun is, I want to just point out that the Rhyno/Heath Slater story is surprisingly good. In 2016, when Slater went undrafted and begged Rhyno to be his tag partner, it was actually heartwarming. Even though it was played for laughs, the image of Heath Slater: Family Man who needed a buddy to get him a job was touching. Their eventual SmackDown Tag Team Championship victory was a great moment.

Now, Rhyno is trying to toughen Heath up, and it’s not going so well. So Rhyno tries to lead by example by challenging Braun Strowman. And it went about as well as you would expect it to go.

And Braun just continues to be the best part of every show he’s on. Yelling at Slater mid match, inviting a two on one attack, overcoming it, and just spamming his running powerslam on both guys? What’s not to love here? I wish upon wish that Strowman had a chance to become Universal Champion at Royal Rumble, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now.

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Rollins (and Jordan) Give Roman a Pep Talk

Roman: “No one messes with our brother!”

Seth: (hopes Roman really did forget that whole ‘steel chair to the back’ thing from 2014) “Haha, yeah!”

Jordan: “Don’t worry, I won’t get you DQ’d when I interfere later!”

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Kane Tries to Make a Deal With a Different Devil

Backstage, Braun Strowman is breathing really heavily. He stumbles across Kane, who has his hands up in surrender. The Big Red Monster wants to make an alliance with Strowman, so they can more easily take out Brock Lesnar at Royal Rumble.

Braun replies with typical Braun attitude: “I DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR PLAN IS, I’M JUST GOING TO MDK EVERYONE IN SIGHT.” There’s more awkward heavy breathing, and that’s it.

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IT’S HAPPENING

LOOK AT HOW HAPPY FINN LOOKS IN THAT PICTURE. LOOK AT HIM.

First things first, Balor is officially declaring entry in the Royal Rumble. Dude shouldn’t have to do it, because it’s been a year and a half since he had to vacate the Universal Championship, and he still hasn’t gotten his rematch. You would think Angle would at least say something like, “Whoa, that was before my time, but let’s rectify that situation and give you a title shot at some point.” But nope.

Anyway, the bigger story – Finn has a six man tag match against Elias and the Miztourage. And Angle wants to know if he’s found any partners yet. In walk Gallows and Anderson and OH MY GOD I’M TYPING IN ALL CAPS AGAIN BECAUSE IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING.

I really hope this is actually the start of something, because it’s not like Gallows and Anderson have been doing anything lately. It’s a perfect spot to reboot them, and we all know all three of these guys have kind of been pushing for this for a while. I’m not emotionally ready for a double cross.

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WWE Intercontinental Championship Match

Roman Reigns (c) vs. Samoa Joe

Result: Roman Reigns defeated Samoa Joe via pinfall

Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

Again, if Reigns gets disqualified, he loses the title. Michael Cole helpfully points out that the referee for this match is John Cone. Why is that significant? He was the official last week who got shoved by Reigns, leading to last week’s DQ and Roman being fined $5,000. Continuity all over the place this week!

As is usually the case with Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns, the match was really good. I shouldn’t have to keep writing this, but Reigns is probably top five in all of WWE in terms of all-around superstar. I’m talking talent, physical ability, the mental aspect of things, and – when he’s not scripted to death – speaking. Look at his selling of Joe’s attack on his arm in this one. It’s top notch work.

The pacing of this one was near perfect, too. Joe’s been doing this for a long time, and it’s easy to forget that, at this point, Reigns is a veteran as well. There was a great flow between rapid fire offense and limb work. That pacing also helped get the crowd into this one – well, at least as much as this crowd would get into anything.

The Reigns “Hulking Up” moment was awesome – just yelling at Joe to hit him harder. Even better, though, was Joe smashing Roman’s face into the steps right after – one for the Shield, one for Ambrose, and one for last week. These guys have such good chemistry in the ring – the timing, intensity, high impact spots all seem that much better.

Things definitely got a little screwy at the end because of the stipulation – inadvertent contact with the official, threatened DQ on Roman, distractions because of it – but this was a phenomenal match.

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Paul Heyman Drops in on the GM

What’s up with Angle making goo goo eyes at the monitor watching Reigns celebrate? It was like he was looking at a big sandwich or something.

Anyway, Paul Heyman doesn’t like Kane and Braun potentially teaming up. So he proclaims 2018 the year of the Beast, and promises Brock Lesnar will be proactive, not reactive.

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Drew Gulak & Ariya Daivari vs. Cedric Alexander & Goldust

Result: Cedric Alexander & Goldust defeated Drew Gulak & Ariya Daivari via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Every time you think Drew Gulak has peaked, here he comes with something like this. Enzo Amore may be sick, but he’s still got a message to get out. So Gulak has it – on Enzo’s personal stationery – and reads it verbatim. Well, he makes the necessary grammatical changes, but if you ask me he improved it. Very little pleases me more than seeing Drew Gulak become the hottest thing in the cruiserweight division.

But before Gulak can finish Enzo’s words, out comes a disappointed Cedric Alexander, looking for competition. Ariya Daivari agrees, but only for a tag match – and Cedric has to team with whoever walks down the ramp. That brings out Goldust, and the most random tag match of 2018 (yes, I feel confident proclaiming that on New Year’s Day) gets under way.

It was definitely an odd match, punctuated by Goldust heading to the top rope to fit in with the 205 Live crew. A nice blind tag to Alexander led to a Lumbar Check on Gulak, and Cedric and Goldust were victorious.

I mentioned this two weeks ago when Hideo Itami was a surprise partner for Finn Balor, but there should be more interaction between the cruiserweights and the main roster. There’s no reason for total separation of the two sections of the roster. But a match like this could lead to something like Alexander vs. Cesaro, or Itami vs. Reigns in an Intercontinental Championship open challenge. There’s lots of possibilities.

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Elias, Bo Dallas, & Curtis Axel vs. Finn Balor, Luke Gallows, & Karl Anderson

Result: Finn Balor, Luke Gallows, & Karl Anderson defeated Elias, Bo Dallas, & Curtis Axel via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Trading in their harmonicas for a cowbell and a set of sleigh bells, the Miztourage join Elias for a performance dedicated to the Miz, who’s back next week. It’s a stirring rendition of “Auld Lang Syne,” followed by a joke about The Rock that no one in the crowd heard because they couldn’t be bothered. I think we can all agree that this was the worst Elias segment in a long time, and Gallows and Anderson interrupt before anything else can go wrong.

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The way the commentary team was hyping the union of Gallows, Anderson, and Balor, I get the feeling that this is going to be more than a one time thing. Lots of mention about their history in Japan – WWE only talks about Japan if it’s important.

Speaking of things commentary focused on, they talked Elias up as a breakout star in 2017. Bruh, we did that already here. But it’s true – Elias had a great 2017, and the sky’s the limit for 2018.

This match, though, is all about The Club. That old phrase “New Year, New Me” really seems to fit with Gallows and Anderson. But if any superstars needed a shakeup, it’s them. This is the best thing for everyone concerned right now. It should also put aside any talk of “Finn Balor not being over.” Do you really think he’s be getting teamed with his longtime friends – something fans have wanted for, like, forever – if he was a lost cause?

The Magic Killer setup for the Coup de Grace is a beautiful thing. It makes me want six man tag team championships in WWE. But right now, I’d settle for Gallows and Anderson getting back into Raw Tag Team Championship contention.

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None of These Three Superstars is Human, Huh?

So WWE Raw this week closes out with a Paul Heyman diatribe against triple threat matches. Good night, everyone!

Seriously, that’s what Heyman did. He’s a guy who could make reading the ingredient insert from a tube of hemorrhoid cream sound like an award winning audiobook, so it sounded great. But the content wasn’t much. “My client doesn’t need to be pinned, but it doesn’t really matter”? Kind of lame.

There were two things that made this segment more interesting to me. First, just a throwaway shot of Braun Strowman watching on a backstage monitor. Nothing really amazing about that, except that the camera shot was set up so the TV looked like it was on the floor. Seriously, Strowman just towered over it, while every other superstar or personality watching backstage looks up at the screen. Just a little detail that makes all the difference.

Second, Kane’s no nonsense interruption. The Big Red Machine just walked down to the ring, got in Brock’s face, and chokeslammed him without batting an eye. Of course, it was super ineffective, but it’s the thought that counts. It would have been cooler if Kane still had his ringpost pyro, because you just know he wanted to do the arm thing while standing over Lesnar.

But surprise! Brock sat up laughing, because “your brother couldn’t keep me down, and neither can you,” I guess. Before anything really happen, the entire midcard spills out to grab Kane and push him backstage. I was hoping Strowman would show up and just trick the entire roster, but I guess he meant what he said to Kane earlier in the night.

Next: The Mount Rushmore of Wrestling

Honestly, this was kind of a lackluster way to end the first WWE Raw of 2018. There were a handful of really good matches, especially the Intercontinental Championship match. But this main event promo was a little dull for who was involved.