Introducing the New Intercontinental Champion: Roman Reigns – Monday Night Raw Recap – November 20, 2017.

Jeremy was kind enough to take care of the action while I skipped merrily around the greater Houston metro area, so I raced my happy ass back to Atlanta to cover tonight’s Raw so he’d get a break  I’ll toss in some of my reaction from the weekend that was throughout.

For the 3rd night in a row, WWE is live in the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. I’m not live in Houston, Texas for another night because at some point I have to show up for work.

The Boss is Here…..The Actual Boss, not Sasha Banks

Yay!  Raw won the day with 1 victory more than Smackdown. For some reason we’re going to pretend it was a clean sweep as the Commissioner heads to the ring to gloat, inviting her husband to the ring as he scored the pin fall. That barely lasts until Angle comes out to confront him as a result of part one of the confusing f***ing finish to last night’s show. Stephanie reminds him that he’s addressing the COO, at which point Angle cowers a bit.

This brings Jason Jordan to defend Daddy. Boo this man.

Stephanie wants him to know that Triple H isn’t afraid of him, or anyone else in the locker room. And that’s never what you say when you’re in the same region as The Monster Among Men, and Strowman will take that challenge and win.

As Strowman gets in Triple H’s face, The Game retreats, leaving the ring. Stephanie let’s Jordan know that if he wants a fight tonight, he’s got one, and it is against Braun Strowman.

The match is lame, as expected because it again has Jordan Jason getting more screen time than he should.  He ends up on the outside teasing like he might leave the match due to the lingering knee issue, as Strowman is attacked from behind by Kane.

Kane attacks the Monster with a chair, eventually dropping him on it and crushing his windpipe (not literally but Strowman sold it like a champ).

The Other Stuff in the Middle

• A Women’s Fatal Four Way Match to Determine the new Number One Contender:  Mickie James, Sasha Banks, Bayley and Alicia Fox took to the ring to find a new challenger for Alexa Bliss, but the match was interrupted by the return of Paige and the debut of Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville.  The trio laid waste to the competitors in this match before going backstage and doing the same to Alexa.  Paige will be champion by the end of the calendar year, even if I think it’s a terrible decision with how hot Alexa Bliss is right now.  I saw more guys in Alexa merch than women this weekend, and that says a lot about a women’s competitor.
• Dean Ambrose defeated Sheamus
• Samoa Joe defeated Finn Balor via KO
• The Cruiserweight Division was crammed into a 7 minute segment that consisted of a full length Enzo promo and then a 4 on 4 tag team match between the roster’s good and bad guys (no Kalisto).  The good guys got the win.
• Asuka defeated Dana Brooke.  Not just defeated, I am pretty sure she kicked her face off.
• Walking With Elias: Did you know that Matt Hardy lost to Elias Samson at Survivor Series?  Neither did I, and I was there.  The official e-mail from the venue had the doors at 4:45 and the show at 5:30.  Even though I was in my seat by 5:05, I somehow missed an entire match.  There wasn’t a match here, just signs of Matt breaking a little more and he ran Samson off.

A Big Dog and an A-Lister

Miz TV was advertised as having special guest Roman Reigns.  Roman did not respond to the first four attempts from the A-Lister to draw him to the ring for the exclusive, but eventually the Miz and Miztourage were joined in the ring by The Shield.  After a rather lengthy back and forth, Rollins & Ambrose vow to get their tag team title back, and Roman, not wanting to be left out of the championship club, sets his sights on the one Miz is holding

And in tonight’s main event, Roman Reigns defeated The Miz to become the new Intercontinental Champion.  I don’t feel like this needed a ton of explanation.  It was actually a pretty damn good match, too.  Roman hit his usual spots, but they worked incredibly well together tonight

And just a thought, in falling into the “Roman sucks” half of the “Let’s Go Roman” dueling chant, you’re just continuing to prove Vince right. You’ll accept my way of thinking eventually and just accept that he’s not a bad guy or a terrible wrestler, just drink the Kool-aid and quit bitching already.

For those of you who don’t relentlessly follow on Twitter, you should be excited to know that Roman is already talking up an Open Challenge for the Intercontinental Championship.  Let’s hope they follow through on it a hell of a lot better than they did when they let AJ run a three part US Open Challenge.  Also, Miz lost because he’s being written off for a while, not because they want to continue to push Roman over all others.