7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 9)
A hot crowd and electric main event power Raw before Extreme Rules.
Apologies for missing last week, but apologies for everyone having to endure a porta-potty being the star of Raw last week.
Monday’s edition of Raw fared much better, with a super-hot Boston crowd keeping this energized throughout the three-hour show, even some of the lesser contests and segments. As a go-home show before Extreme Rules, Raw was pretty solid, keeping its storylines moving ahead without feeling like a slog.
We saw Seth Rollins take a turn as a mediocre comedian, but then revert back to the Monday Night Rollins we’ve grown to love. We saw Nia Jax get fired-up and look dominant, which has been lacking at times. We saw Drew McIntyre back up everything he’s been saying since returning to Raw. And we saw Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley make their match at the PPV something you want to see.
We also saw Braun Strowman spend another week doing something other than pursuing the WWE Universal Champion because he’s in absentia. We saw two top women’s wrestlers settling their differences not in the ring, but on a counselor’s couch. And we saw a classic wrestling finisher ignored by announcers who trip over each other to declare every historical nugget that has been approved for sharing on the airwaves.
All in all, it was a pretty good episode, and while Extreme Rules itself doesn’t look like a very consequential show on paper, it could be pretty good if all the components deliver.
With that said, let’s see how things shook out.