6 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 22)

An inoffensive, but forgettable episode of Raw filling space and time.

Finn Balor Paul Heyman
WWE.com

WWE Raw came at fans from Grand Rapids, Michigan, which will forever be known as the place that the Drifter finally stopped drifting.

But beyond that, Raw continued its slow but steady ride toward Extreme Rules in less than two weeks, with a tag team title bout stipulation announced and a few others bouts reinforced Monday night. On paper, it doesn’t look too bad, but the series of stipulations with each match could either be salvation or a hindrance.

We saw Paul Heyman praise a potential opponent for his client without being sarcastic. We saw Apollo Crews continue his bizarre run of directionless appearances in WWE. We saw the Hardy Boyz continuing their popular run, but essentially while stuck in neutral. We saw cruiserweight action that was over in a blink. And we saw the Samoan Submission Machine show exactly why he’s considered so dangerous.

A note: Raw presented its usual mixed bag for fans, and at three hours, even decent programs end up leaning toward the negative because it’s a marathon effort to watch all of it in one sitting. By the time the main even rolls around, you’re just waiting for things to end rather than being honestly curious how things will play out. That’s not a good sensation.

So what elbow-dropped the competition and what got put down with the Coquina Clutch? Let’s get to it…

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.