As soon as Sami Zayn and Penta’s tag team match against The Vision’s Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed was announced in the aftermath of Night of Champions, I figured there was no way for this main event to end in anything other than a disqualification. WWE loves building factions through disqualification or no contest finishes: you have a member or two of a faction run a match, then the rest of that faction rushes the ring to cause some shenanigans in order to get the match thrown out before utter chaos ensues to close out the show. This isn’t exclusive to WWE, but it’s a lot more noticeable in WWE *solely* because of its overuse. As the match continued, I figured that interference was to come sooner rather than later, and that it was only a matter of time before we were robbed of a satisfying match ending yet again.

One, two, three. Wait, did Bron Breakker just get a clean pin?

“WWE Raw’s” main event ended in utter chaos, but not in the way you may expect. There was no sudden appearance from Seth Rollins here, no Paul Heyman interference to muddy the results of the match. After being tagged in by teammate Bronson Reed, Breakker stormed the ring with a spear after a series of frustrating near falls from the resilient Zayn, chugging along like a steam-powered locomotive before scoring a clean pinfall. Clean pinfalls are so hard to come by nowadays, but I’m not rejoicing solely for the sake of rarity. No, The Vision sorely needed this win, and they needed it to be clean and decisive.

This is how you build up a faction — not by ostentatious or flamboyant disqualification “all chaos has broken loose” nonsense. A faction built on nothing but outside interference becomes clownish, and is failed to be taken seriously. Do you know what a faction built on results becomes? They become a veritable threat — *grounded* in legitimacy. It wasn’t even that this finish was any less intense than a disqualification finish might be; Breakker’s spear looked absolutely devastating as he cut through air to break Zayn in half. This was a great match that was made even better by a *good* finish. By expressing restraint in the chaos, Breakker and Reed were booked to be real threats (and threats that exist outside of Rollins).

Adding Jey Uso in there was nice, especially since CM Punk was featured in an earlier segment. Uso, who is becoming more confident in singles competition by the day, got a credibility boost during the post-match save when he laid old-fashioned steel onto both Breakker and Reed in order to save Zayn and Penta. You can clearly see the WarGames team lines being drawn, and while I think November is a bit ways away, I guess it is never too early to start planning.

Sometimes I leave “Raw” feeling frustrated or confused — this was not the case. Sometimes, you just need a bit of control in the chaos.

Written by Angeline Phu