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Preview for Final WWE Raw Before Survivor Series Pay-Per-View
November 12, 2018
Just six days before a Survivor Series pay-per-view in which brand supremacy is at stake, the Raw brand rolls into the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, for a show that should provide all of the last-minute hype for one of WWE's premier extravaganzas.
The return of The Billion Dollar Princess and The Beast Incarnate cap off what should be an explosive USA Network telecast tasked with generating genuine excitement for Sunday's show.
World Cup Controversy
Apparently, there is controversy surrounding the World Cup tournament at Crown Jewel.
Or so the official WWE.com preview tells us.
Sure, Shane McMahon randomly replaced an injured Miz to defeat Dolph Ziggler and win the World Cup for the SmackDown brand. Was it necessarily legal? No. Did anything about the booking of that entire tournament make a lick of sense? No.
Most importantly, was there any sort of fallout from McMahon's options in the days after the show? No.
Stephanie McMahon will return to Raw Monday to address her brother's antics and said "controversy" as WWE Creative wraps up another of those pesky loose ends it is not always that concerned with.
Common sense says she takes exception to her brother's actions and is looking to have that victory stricken from the record books.
Instead, there will probably be some sort of convoluted mess of an angle that puts the World Cup up for grabs in the Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown match to take place Sunday night at Survivor Series.
Brock Lesnar Returns to Raw
At Survivor Series, new universal champion Brock Lesnar will scratch off one of the dates on his latest contract when he battles WWE champion AJ Styles in a rematch of their near-classic from a year ago.
Monday, Lesnar eats, sleeps, conquers and repeats his way to the squared circle as part of the final build to that clash.
What is not known is if The Beast Incarnate will find himself approached by anyone, not least of whom the man he beat for the title in controversial fashion, Braun Strowman.
Will The Monster Among Men confront Lesnar, or will his sights still be on general manager Baron Corbin?
Should fans expect Styles to appear Monday night?
With no prior advertising, all signs point to no live appearance from The Phenomenal One, but another superb video package or "live via satellite" promo should do just enough to help put over the significance of their colossal clash.
Filling Out The Teams
A staple of the Survivor Series pay-per-view is the traditional tag team elimination match. The event was built around the idea of "teams of five strive to survive," and Sunday, those matches will make up the majority of the WWE Network presentation.
Monday on Raw, team captain Alexa Bliss will reveal the women who will fill out the flagship show's team. We will also find out which Superstars will round out the men's team. Then there is the tag team-based match, which has yet to have a single twosome revealed.
Whereas SmackDown Live filled out all of its teams on last week's show, Raw still has considerable work to do Monday, making for what is sure to be a rushed and convoluted broadcast.
It would seem the creative team behind the longest running episodic show would have it no other way.