Whether by choice, forced to do so due to budget cuts, or a mishap in poor planning and scheduling causing an oversight they had no time to fix, the Raw brand has no pay-per-view this December.
We’ve known about this for quite some time as advertisements kept jumping around and not listing enough events to do two per month, with Clash of Champions being the only thing after Survivor Series that was announced, so it’s no surprise that we’re now in December and nothing has been mentioned.
However, it IS surprising when you realize how easily they could have booked something to go on here and how it wouldn’t have taken much effort to build the card based off the events that transpired before, during and immediately after Survivor Series.
With that in mind, I figured it would be kind of fun to construct what the card would have been if WWE had managed to scramble together what likely would have been the Raw pay-per-view of December 2017.
The Name of the Event
Even though I keep championing the return of Breaking Point, it’s most likely they would have gone with the Roadblock title. That’s a very recent show that they only ran twice, they have the graphics for it, and it hadn’t happened yet this year.
Gimmick Match: Braun Strowman vs. Kane
This is the only true guarantee, which is probably likely to happen at the Royal Rumble if they can stretch the feud out longer.
If not, this will just be happening on an episode of Monday Night Raw coming up in December or early January, but no matter when, it’s definitely happening.
The only question other than “when” is what the gimmick would be, as the two of them need to have some sort of stipulation attached to their encounter for it to make any sense.
WWE could have (and could still) gone the lazy route by having a Last Man Standing Match or worse, a generic Street Fight, but I’d love to see them bring back the Casket Match just to spice things up a bit.
Intercontinental Championship Match Options
There basically would have been two scenarios here, wherein the placement of the pay-per-view on the timeline in relation to The Miz’s filming schedule would dictate which one of the two matches it would be.
In scenario #1, The Miz goes into this with the title and drops it to Roman Reigns. They don’t have their match on Raw, but rather, on this event. The same scenario goes down, with Reigns winning the title, as that’s clearly what WWE wanted to happen.
In scenario #2, the event takes place after The Miz has to take his leave of absence
[Bonus Match from Scenario #1]: Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe
Assuming we’re looking at a card where The Miz vs. Roman Reigns is on there, something else has to happen with Samoa Joe and the only thing going on at the time would have been a continuation of his feud with Finn Balor, which was pretty much just dropped out of nowhere.
Again, that is only if the match between The Miz and Roman Reigns happened at this show. If not, and Joe was facing Reigns, there would be no need for this match, and Finn Balor would find himself doing something else.
Bray Wyatt vs. Matt Hardy
We appear to be in the midst of the rebirth of Broken Matt Hardy, or possibly Woken Matt Hardy, or Awoken Matt Hardy, or whatever term we use to describe that is going to be WWE’s variation on that character.
What they call him is splitting hairs. It doesn’t really matter. The true purpose is still to get him to the same end game, where he’s snapped and can feud with Bray Wyatt over how they’re both totally nuts.
While I’m sure there are people who will say this should take place at WrestleMania, I think there are too many other matches that would take priority over this, so it’s better to not have it be relegated to a short pre-show match.
Instead, we would see the first steps of this happen here at Roadblock, then as they would go deeper into the abyss, we’d see a confrontation at the Royal Rumble and eventually Elimination Chamber, before both men would be involved in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal if not given something better to do at WrestleMania.
Raw Tag Team Championship Match: The Bar (c) vs. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins
No way, you totally didn’t see this coming, did you?!
Of course this match would be happening. It’s been happening for months and with the title changing hands, this would be the rematch to determine whether Ambrose and Rollins head into WrestleMania season as champions or if they go off and do something else.
I’m assuming we’d see the titles change hands so by the end of the night, all three members of The Shield are holding gold.
Other than that, there isn’t much more to say except how this could possibly be a two-out-of-three-falls match or something along those lines just to lend it some finality.
Absolution vs. Bayley, Sasha Banks, Mickie James
When you return from an injury and you have two NXT women called up to the main roster, making their debuts, and forming a new stable, you need to stick together and win some kind of generic tag team match.
That’s just how it works. I don’t write the rules.
The three babyfaces above would be the united front against Absolution and they would fail.
Rinse and repeat when it comes to SmackDown and The Riott Squad, as that’s basically the exact same thing, for some reason.
Cruiserweight Championship Match: Enzo Amore (c) vs. TBD
My guess is the 205 Live division would be operating essentially exactly the same as it is now, with the Fatal 4-Ways and No. 1 contender’s matches determining who would fight Enzo Amore next.
That hasn’t been determined yet, as it could be Rich Swann, Cedric Alexander, Mustafa Ali, or technically even Drew Gulak or Tony Nese (even though we know it will likely be one of the three babyfaces who earns the title shot).
Basically, take your pick. I don’t imagine anybody dethroning Enzo at this time, so it doesn’t really matter all that much outside of personal preference.
If that’s the case, I’d rather see Swann or Ali get the opportunity and lose, since I’m a bigger fan of Alexander and would like to see him actually win that title sooner than later before moving on to feud with Hideo Itami, but that’s another discussion for another day.
All in all, this wraps up to Enzo defeating anybody who he’s paired up with, and for the hell of it, let’s just go with Mustafa Ali on this one.
Asuka vs. Alicia Fox (with special guest referee Alexa Bliss)
Here’s where we need to just start spitballing ideas, because it’s hard to tell exactly what direction WWE is taking the women’s division.
Asuka can’t lose any time soon, that’s a given, so she can’t be put up against Absolution without having Absolution lose or tainting her undefeated streak with a “loss but not really because it was her teammates who got pinned so just give us a break everybody” type scenario.
Also, with Absolution being heels, that doesn’t pair well with Alexa Bliss holding the title and facing any of them in singles competition, nor does it seem like a smart idea to put the belt on Asuka immediately.
To counteract all these things, if you brought me on board the night after Survivor Series, I would have pitched a scenario where Alicia Fox tries to get all the credit for their win since she was team captain, while everybody knows it was Asuka who did the heavy lifting, setting up a match between the two.
As a means to get Alexa Bliss on the card without the title being defended, she would be inserted as the special guest referee after her ego gets in the way, with her saying that as champion, she is the true leader of the division on Raw and the only one whose opinion matters, blah blah blah.
Is it the strongest concept in the world? Admittedly, no. However, I’m working with what WWE has given me and trying to make as many puzzle pieces fit.
Asuka wins, of course, and has her eyes set on capturing the title from Bliss asap.
Who Knows: Jason Jordan, Finn Balor, Elias and more….
Lastly, we need to figure out something for these guys. Balor was covered in the situation where he’d face Samoa Joe if Reigns and Miz were locking horns, but in a different setup, he has nothing to do.
Jason Jordan has to come into play SOMEWHERE, so maybe he turns heel and targets Balor for some reason? Maybe Kurt Angle wants to be impressed by both guys, who are both still babyfaces, and he sets up a match between the two just to help give Balor a win that he can take into challenging Brock Lesnar and getting destroyed?
Elias is easier to work with, as he can just have a song during the pre-show or fight someone like Heath Slater and you check him off the list.
People like The Good Brothers and Titus Worldwide seem like they should have more to do, but don’t, and even though I’m personally still wondering why Gallows and Anderson haven’t aligned themselves with Balor to try to help all three of their careers, that doesn’t look to be in the cards right now, so it wouldn’t shock me if they were left off the card along with people like Goldust, R-Truth and the rest who aren’t regular focal points.
That’s what I can see as the potential card we would have gotten for a Raw pay-per-view this December, had WWE opted to put on another special event.
What do you think the lineup of matches would have been? Is this a good enough B-level event, or are you happier to see this type of content happening on television week to week instead?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!
