This week, Raw did improve a bit, but I think we felt so only because of the kind of shows we have been getting in the last couple of weeks. We are still getting those time-filling segments that are illogical to say the least.
Smackdown again proved to be the better show, and is only raising the bar each passing week. We had two amazing matches in Daniel Bryan vs Mustafa Ali and Charlotte vs Asuka, which showed why wrestling is such a good sport.
Each week, we get to know about the next step in the different storylines, and this week WWE didn't disappoint in that regard. Storylines were building up in the go-home episodes for TLC pay-per-view. This week, we will focus on Raw (December 10) and Smackdown (December 11).
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3. A dominating heel champion is a rare breed
In this week's Raw, we saw the Authors of Pain lose their Raw Tag Team Championships to the team of Bobby Roode and Chad Gable because of the mistake of their manager.
To be honest, Authors of Pain never felt like a truly dominating team throughout their run like they were in NXT. They had a loss against the same team a couple of weeks ago in a non-title match, and even in Survivor Series, they won against the Bar because of a distraction.
This team has a lot of potential as both Akram and Rezar are big dudes and are capable of taking on any tag team on any given day. Raw's tag team division needed this now more than ever, as they hadn't had any dominating heel champions for a while now. Even the championship run of Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler was more about their feud against The Shield.
At the moment, Daniel Byan is the only truly dominating heel champion with his 'New' Daniel Bryan gimmick. Becky Lynch is more of an anti-hero, Shinsuke Nakamura does not show up regularly, The Bar relies on various shenanigans and the Big Show, and Seth Rollins is a babyface.
I don't think Brock Lesnar can be regarded as a dominating champion as he does not defend Universal Title on most of the pay-per-views. Maybe a championship run from the likes of Charlotte Flair, Drew McIntyre or Randy Orton can break this long spell.
2. WWE is taking measures to promote 205 Live
This week, we saw two 205 Live superstars perform on Raw and Smackdown respectively. Bobby Lashley's hype-man, Lio Rush, faced Elias on Raw, and Mustafa Ali faced WWE Champion Daniel Bryan on Smackdown.
While the former match was made as a part of a feud between Elias and Lashley, the announcement of the latter served as a nice surprise because many, including me, would have never thought that we needed this match so badly.
This was an enormous step for the 205 Live division, as not only did one of its wrestlers get a main roster match, but it was against the top champion of the company.
We have even seen 205 Live's manager, Drake Maverick, making appearances on Raw as AOP's manager. These roles are doing their jobs very well as they intrigue new people to watch some high-flying stunts and over the top actions in 205 live.
1. WWE will continue to protect Charlotte
The Wrestlemania 34 rematch between Charlotte and Asuka was easily the highlight of this week as both women gave whatever they had to stand tall at the end. It was a high-quality affair which took both women to their limits.
Even though it was not in any way near their Wrestlemania affair, it still did enough to create the hype for their Triple Threat Ladder Match with Becky Lynch for the Smackdown Women's Championship.
However, the end result was very disappointing as Charlotte Flair hit Asuka with a kendo stick, ending the match in a disqualification. The management didn't want Asuka to lose as they wanted to build her up for the TLC match, and they continued to protect Charlotte by not letting her take a pin.