Ladies and gentlemen, tonight is Monday night! The last Monday before Christmas! I’m sure for some people this is like the exact opposite of a holiday… for me, it’s uh, any other Monday really. Which means it’s preview time! I’m Jordan Huie of the Overtimer and tonight… I’m cheatin’~! WWE Raw is tonight and as usual they only see fit to give me a couple of things to work with but that’s fine! I don’t need to wait for them to officially announce things when the whole show’s been taped all along for a whole week!
Tonight, we have a fairly big six-man tag to look forward to, which is about as Monday Night Raw as things get.
Randy Orton & The Viking Raiders vs. The OC (AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson)
The multiple time world champion Randy Orton pairs up with the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships in this trios match. They’re going up against what is basically Raw’s dedicated heel team in these matches. AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows make up the OC. This is of course part of two ongoing rivalries.
AJ Styles holds a bitter grudge against Randy Orton after the latter cost him his WWE United States Championship to Rey Mysterio – and later repeated the offense, preventing him from regaining the title as well! Meanwhile, the OC have been intensively pursuing the Viking Raiders’ tag team titles since WWE TLC. They answered their open challenge only to have their match end in an abrupt double count out. This led to a non-title rematch the next night on Monday Night Raw, which quizzically was much more like a PPV match. Lengthy, solid, building to a good finish… except the title wasn’t on the line for whatever reason, something even commentary was not too well aware of.
The heels need the steam here, given AJ has been taken to by Orton a good few times and Gallows & Anderson are still heading for another tag team title match. So this is the second heel win of the night that I’m actually picking in these previews! OC over.
