Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Finn Balor and Damian Priest vs. The Street Profits vs. Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson vs. Alpha Academy vs. Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin in Tag Team Turmoil for a shot at the Undisputed WWE Tag Titles, Solo Sikoa vs. Dolph Ziggler, Rhea Ripley vs. Candice LeRae, Bayley vs. Michin, Kevin Owens vs. Baron Corbin

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

WWE Raw Hits

Finn Balor and Damian Priest vs. The Street Profits vs. Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson vs. Alpha Academy vs. Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin in Tag Team Turmoil for a shot at the Undisputed WWE Tag Titles: On a night where WWE was light on star power due to injuries (and a television shoot for Becky Lynch), WWE managed to fill time opposite the college football national championship with an entertaining Tag Team Turmoil match. Prison hardened Dominik Mysterio is the funnest act on Raw these days, so it was a wise move to have him involved throughout the match before he actually replaced Balor at the end. While the Street Profits challenging the Usos would have likely led to a stronger title match, I like that they freshened things up by going with a Judgment Day win, particularly since it’s too soon for the Profits to take another loss, presuming the company has no intention of moving the tag titles before WrestleMania.

Austin Theory, Seth Rollins, and Bobby Lashley: I guess Theory won’t be moving on after all, as it looks like he is still feuding with Rollins and perhaps even Lashley based on this segment. They took another step toward The Hurt Business reuniting via the MVP and Lashley backstage exchange. I like that Lashley didn’t just forgive and forget. There should be some hesitation on his part and it will be interesting to see what eventually causes him to put the band back together.

Solo Sikoa vs. Dolph Ziggler: An enjoyable match that lacked any sense of drama regarding the outcome despite some close near falls for Ziggler. I was less annoyed by Sikoa having a competitive match with Ziggler than I was by his two competitive brawls with Elias for some reason. It’s hard not to laugh at how weak authority figure Adam Pearce looks when he’s dished out three punishment matches for The Bloodline over the last two weeks and the faction members won all three. For that matter, Pearce having the Usos ejected from the building was also comical given that they showed up after this match and then even had a standard entrance complete with their music at the end of the night.

Rhea Ripley vs. Candice LeRae: A dominant showing for Ripley, who is thriving as a strong, cocky heel. At this rate, I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t take the title from Bianca Belair at WrestleMania.

WWE Raw Misses

Kevin Owens vs. Baron Corbin: The match was fine, but the Corbin act continues to feel flat and beating him didn’t feel like much of a momentum builder for Owens. It’s great that Corbin is not in Happy mode or playing a cliche royalty gimmick, but his Wrestling God gimmick with JBL clearly needs some tweaks that the creative forces seem unwilling to make. On a side note, it was strange that JBL stated the obvious that no one thinks Owens can defeat Roman Reigns at the Royal Rumble and yet Owens never offered a rebuttal. As great as Owens is on the mic, I’m not sure that even he can sell the masses on the idea of beating Reigns before WrestleMania, but he still needs to try.

Bayley vs. “Michin” Mia Yim: More of an in the middle. The most interesting part of the match actually came afterward when Graves stated that it was another rough night for The OC. The faction just hasn’t clicked and the addition of Michin didn’t provide much of a spark. Are changes in the works?