TFG Monday Night Raw Review: Recreating the NWo Magic

The debut of Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows was the major talking point from last week’s Monday Night Raw. Though they showed up on the show, we had no idea on what they wanted or what WWE had planned for them.

The picture, however, became clear this week around. Anderson and Gallows drew their battle lines with Roman Reigns and announced their alignment with none other than AJ Styles. Now, for those that does not follow New Japan Pro Wrestling, Anderson and Gallows was part of the Bullet Club which AJ Styles headed at a point of time. So it makes a lot of sense for these three to reunite and work against Reigns.

The problem here is the fact that they are essentially playing heel characters and getting huge pops just because they are going up against Reigns. Now, AJ Styles is the most over babyface in the WWE roster right now. He gets a mammoth reaction whenever he comes out and is capable of being the new ‘face’ of WWE.

Reigns, on the other hand, is who WWE wants to be on top. And then came Anderson and Gallows with an NWo like debut. They came through the crowd and took out the Usos and in the week that followed, they took out the WWE champion.

So from what we know now, AJ Styles has two monsters to watch his back when he is the most over babyface on the roster. It does not make much sense does it?

Now this is where the brilliance of WWE comes to play. While they are teasing the alignment of AJ Styles with Anderson and Gallows, they are also keeping the door open for Finn Balor’s debut in the main roster.

Anderson and Gallows said that they will have the back of AJ Styles at Payback, but in reality, they might only be setting up the debut of Balor, who could turn out to be the actual leader of the pack. So in short, if Balor debuts, WWE get a solid heel stable in the form of Balor Club, they have a top babyface in AJ Styles, and Roman Reigns does not get booed as the fans will be busy marking out with what’s happening elsewhere.

And this ladies and gentlemen was the biggest takeaway from this week’s Raw which also had Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady getting one over the Dudley Boyz, Dean Ambrose, and Chris Jericho drawing battle lines and Sami Zayn officially getting his shot at Kevin Owens.

Here are the complete results from this week’s Monday Night Raw.

• Chris Jericho Defeated Sami Zayn
• Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson said that they will have the back of AJ Styles at Payback
• Enzo and Big Cass defeated Dudley Boyz
• Roman Reigns gets taken out by Anderson and Gallows
• Baron Corbin defeated Fandango
• New Day and Cesaro defeated Miz and League of Nations
• Natalya, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Paige defeated Tamina, Naomi, Summer Rae and Charlotte
• The Vaudevillains defeated Usos
• Apollo Crews defeated Heath Slater
• Dean Ambrose defeated Kevin Owens. After the match, Chris Jericho took out Ambrose.