6 Ups & 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE RAW (July 2)
DOWNS...
6. Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Copy & Paste Booking
When a certain, cynical quarter of the fandom complains about copy and paste booking, it is not in itself a copy and paste complaint: WWE almost invariably adheres to the shortcut formula.
Matt Hardy squared off against Curtis Axel, as individual members of feuding tag teams tend to do ahead of a pay-per-view clash. Prior to it, for the third consecutive week, The B Team impersonated the Deleters. As with so much else, WWE, in completely failing to grasp comedy’s rule of three, achieved the opposite of something good. This wasn't played for laughs so much as an echo of laughter. Had this been edited in from last week's broadcast, nobody would have fluttered an eyelid.
Nobody fluttered an eyelid at the action, which was an overlong, basic affair featuring the most pointlessly painful apron bump in recent memory. The questionable wisdom behind a comedy title feud aside: why bother diluting that vicious spot in service of broad, stopgap comedy?
Did the road agent paste sequences from the main event formula?
As for next week: delete one Deleter, paste in another, and we arrive at Bray Wyatt vs. Bo Dallas. The WrestleMania X opening match it will not be.