5 reasons why this week's Monday Night Raw was underwhelming (26 November 2018)

Alright, It's agreeable that it's not easy to fill 3 hours with everything off the charts. Neither is it easy to come up with good storylines time and again. One can be expected to fall short, and sometimes one should cut them some slack because it's not an easy job.

But if they come up with 3 hours of drowsy, sleep-inducing, repetitive, and downright boring product, with almost next to nothing to write home about, then the WWE Creative deserve some heavy criticism.

A product whose ratings have been falling steadily and on a regular basis comes up with 3 hours of this? Are they even serious about their work? Or are they just a bunch of downright lazy employees who are paid bucket loads to do a poor job?

Some might wonder what made this week's edition so awful. Well, here are some of the reasons.

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#1 Anti-climactic matches

Anyone could have predicted how the match was going to pan out

Bobby Lashley faced Elias after an opening segment which had Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, and Drew McIntyre pretty much declaring themselves to be an alliance. In the match, Elias was almost about to pin Bobby when the referee was pulled out.

As a result, the General Manager Elect turned the match into a no disqualification match. And the result? Elias was whooped from one end of the ring to the other, and then the three just stood tall as Elias' carcass was just lying in the corner.

Later in the main event, Finn Balor faced Baron Corbin, and just when he was about to win, Corbin changed the stipulation of the match, and again all three members of the alliance thrashed Balor from corner to corner until he was left pretty much lifeless as the three again stood tall.

Did any of those sequence of events come as a surprise? Nope. Everything that happened, any average viewer could tell was going to happen, and WWE spent almost an hour on this.

These three are big and dangerous, we get it, get a move on, please!

#2 Boring, long, and dragged out promos

The combination of Nia Jax and Tamina looks slow and lazy at best, and are really lacking the charisma

Nia Jax had built up a lot of heat in the last few weeks with her actions in the ring. She'd put Becky Lynch out of action with an errant punch, and then went on to boast about it on social media. She'd won the Battle Royal as well as the women's Survivor Series match.

Everything seemed to be shaping up perfectly, but then WWE did something it shouldn't have. Nia Jax was given the mic and a chance to speak for what seemed like a very very long time (such was the monotony and banality of her promo).

Nia Jax is no Stone Cold or a Rock, but WWE should have known that she's horrible at cutting promos. The promo was long and downright boring, but it didn't get better when Ronda Rousey stepped into the ring, and was herself fumbling with words. The segment pretty much killed whatever build-up there was for their match.

#3 Unanswered storyline twists

Where was Drew during the match between Dolph and Seth Rollins?

All of a sudden during the show, Dean Ambrose had a segment where he was getting vaccination shots against Ebola, dysentery, and whatnot, because he was afraid he might catch something from the people in the arena when he comes to Raw next week. It was the same reason why he had opted not to come to Raw this week.

All of a sudden Dean has turned from being The Lunatic Fringe to someone who is scared of catching flu from people. What brought about this change?

Dolph answered the open challenge from Seth Rollins for the Intercontinental Championship. Why was Drew McIntyre not at ringside? And why was Dolph not with Drew when The Psychopath came to the ring during the show?

Remember when Bobby Lashley was a face and Elias was a heel? What happened that they both turned? The writing is so lazy that viewers are just expected to swallow whatever is shoved down their throats.

#4 Repetitive booking

The same thing has happened over and over and over again

The Revival faced Lucha House Party for what seemed like the hundredth time, and The Revival lost to Lucha House Party for what seemed like the thousandth time.

It has been the same match played again and again and again, with even the same result, which makes you wonder if the only significance of such a match is to help reach the 3-hr limit for the show.

The tag team division is in the dumps, and the primary reason why that happens is that The Revival, one of the more formidable tag teams, have been converted into a bunch of jobbers who have done nothing but lose to anything that moves.

The less we talk about what's going on with AOP and the silly feud with Drake Maverick taking the limelight, the better.

#5 Surprise surprise!!!! Dolph and Seth face-off for the 50th time

Seth issued an Intercontinental Championship Open Challenge on Raw

It was built up pretty well. Seth Rollins first made the announcement on Twitter that he'll conduct an Open Challenge for the Intercontinental Championship on this edition of raw.

It was one of the more highly anticipated segments because of Seth's ongoing feud with Dean to see how this pans out. But first, in an earlier segment, Dean revealed he was not in the arena, and won't make an appearance, and then later the only anticipation left for who would be the challenger for Seth was killed when Dolph's music hit, and he answered the challenge.

No disrespect to either star, as they pulled off an amazing match one again, but how many times have we seen this already? One would almost lose count of how many times Dolph and Seth have faced off against each other.