WWE Raw: Results, Review, and Analysis for October 22nd, 2018

Finn Balor is out in the ring for a match with Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush. Lio is absolutely the best heel on Raw right now; try to convince me that even a small percentage of you doesn’t say “okay, okay, you can stop talking now” while Lio’s on the mic.

He gets under your skin immediately, and that’s one of the Seven Wonders of a good ole’ fashioned heel.

Lashley predominately manhandles Balor, which is a travesty of Balor’s talent, but what can you do? Balor gains some aerial momentum finally, and he secures a pretty tight standing pin on Lashley despite Lio in his ear the whole time.

This is a decent feud! I’d like to see Balor get a bit more offense in; I get that Lashley is indeed very dominant, but Balor is one of the best of the best. This match is much more evenly-matched than this showing gave it credit for.

Credit: WWE.com

Sasha Banks and Ruby Riott are in singles action tonight, in a match that I’ve said was way better for the Evolution card than the match they gave us, though of course I’m happy to see all six women (that’s including Natalya, Bayley, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan) highlighted on the card.

Riott Squad is of course considerably more involved in this match that Natalya or Bayley, and Ruby seems to have the upper-hand for the early parts of the match.

That is, until Sasha gets the Banks Statement almost locked in, and Bayley jumps in to keep Sarah Logan from interfering, and the four women not involved come to blows outside the ring.

The distraction proves to be too much for Banks though, and Ruby picks up the win.

In a vignette, The Brothers of Destruction have a message for DX, and it’s punctuated by the fact that they say Shawn Michaels stayed away from WWE because he was afraid.

They were asked, “are you ready”, and their response was clear – “Rest in peace.”