What happened on RAW?

This is the last live WWE show until the big Smackdown on December 29th so Raw seemed a bit more eventful than usual. All hands are on deck to promote the big main event on the last Smackdown of the year, which will feature Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn taking on the returning John Cena and Kevin Owens. Reigns started the show with a pre-taped promo saying the Bloodline was going to prove their dominance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee9ltUDYDMM

This led to the Usos, Solo and Sami Zayn jumping a bunch of people backstage throughout the night. Eventually, it led to a match with Sami vs. AJ Styles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RG9tcCr118

That led to a confrontation with Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins, of all people, made the save. Rollins is currently feuding with Austin Theory for the US Title but ended up teaming with Owens against the Usos in the main event. They had this cute exchange beforehand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXZfNaGFG6o

The match ended with Owens getting the win heading into the big Smackdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEQ3Y-wrM0Q

Elsewhere on the show, Alexa Bliss gave more teases about her "abandonment issues" with Bray Wyatt and Lilly the doll even made an appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hce-3Zgs55I

A rarity for WWE, we saw an intergender match with Rhea Ripley taking on Akira Tozawa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnX2vxf5vw8

And, there was a big return, as Bronson Reed made his main roster debut. Fans didn't seem to quite know who he was, but he looked impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrE993E5PU0

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What's on TV this week?

NXT is tonight leading up to their big New Year's Evil show in a few weeks:

AEW Dynamite has their Holiday Bash tomorrow at 8pm.
Will they continue the momentum they've been building? Here's the card, which looks great.

• AEW Women’s Champion Jamie Hayter defends against Hikaru Shida
• FTR vs. Gunn Club
• Death Triangle vs. The Elite in a no DQ match (match 5 in the best of 7 series for the AEW Trios titles)
• Swerve Strickland/Keith Lee face-to-face
• Bryan Danielson appearance
• Ricky Starks appearance

Impact on Thursday on AXS TV has a good lineup:

• Knockouts Tag Team Champions The Death Dollz (Taya Valkyrie & Jessicka) defend against Deonna Purrazzo & Gisele Shaw
• Steve Maclin vs. Rich Swann
• Jordynne Grace & Mickie James vs. Tasha Steelz & Savannah Evans
• "Speedball" Mike Bailey vs. Yuya Uemura

Smackdown on Friday is pre-taped. Here are spoilers, and the card looks fun:

• Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship: The Usos (c) vs. Hit Row
• SmackDown Women's Championship number one contender's gauntlet match: Liv Morgan vs. Tegan Nox vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Xia Li vs. Sonya Deville vs. Emma
• Miracle on 34th Street Fight: Braun Strowman & Ricochet vs. Imperium (Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci)
• Also expect appearances from Rey Mysterio, Bray Wyatt and more

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Wrestling News from Around the Internet

Mandy Rose was fired last week from WWE for posting racy photos to a Fan Time account, and now her agent has told TMZ that since her firing, she has made half a million dollars in revenue on the website. Her agent predicts she will hit a million in revenue by Christmas. Could be worse.

The former Lana, CJ Perry, made a similar statement recently, saying she's earning more than her WWE contract from her fan page, and claiming she made $20,000 in her first day.

Next week's RAW will not be a new episode, but rather “The Absolute Best of 2022”, featuring the best moments of the year and likely the broadcast of some PPV matches.

Goldberg's WWE contract is about to expire.

In what looks to be the beginning of a storyline for WrestleMania, Snoop Dogg has revealed his custom, gold-plated WWE championship belt had been stolen:"

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1604256492089139200?

Rocky Romero, the New Japan American liaison spoke to Renee Pacquette about how difficult the Karl Anderson situation has been for them. Anderson won the NEVER Openweight Title and then signed with WWE before losing the belt. He will now be competing on New Japan's biggest show, Wrestle Kingdom, likely losing the title.

Rocky said of the situation: "It’s been a very stressful situation for me . Obviously, when the guys started talking about WWE had reached out to them, I of course started to get nervous because I knew that we had a bunch of dates set and everything and obviously, like you said, Anderson was the NEVER Openweight Champion. I got worried and I said, ‘You know, you guys just don’t screw me over please.' I was part of the reason that you guys came back and helped to, you know? Obviously, they left on good terms and everything, but just to bring them back was definitely a part of that.

"So we started talking about that but then finally was like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna sign and somebody’s gonna have to talk to WWE.’ So of course that means me having to talk to WWE. But I got on the line and obviously, there was some confusion on the dates that they were gonna actually do and there was that November 5 show that Anderson had already been announced for for New Japan but then it was also the same time that the Saudi Arabia show was going on. Obviously there was gonna be conflict right there, so that’s kind of how it started. It started off real rocky and they went and did Saudi, we figured it out, got a new date, and then just decided to turn it into a big angle because I thought that was probably the best way to deal with it. Hoping that everything was gonna work out but not really sure. Finally, went and did this last show a couple days ago and successfully defended the title. So now he’ll be at the Tokyo Dome to face Tama Tonga, which is really exciting. Dude, this Tokyo Dome is gonna be insane. We have a WWE wrestler in Karl Anderson, we have Kenny Omega who’s an AEW wrestler, we’ve got Stardom wrestlers on the show, we’ve got New Japan wrestlers."

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith paid tribute to Ric Flair recently:

https://twitter.com/stephenasmith/status/1604856756152061952

Undertaker took two very interesting photo ops lately:

https://twitter.com/SocksUnterShoes/status/1604184193193369601

https://twitter.com/Philwest4151/status/1604663536084430848

Do you enjoy pro wrestling? Knotfest Wrestling has a bi-weekly column filled with wrestling news. Read previous editions of this column here. You can always follow me @robinjection on Instagram and Twitter and @Squaredcirclpit.