8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 1)

Blistering main event and Universal title is remembered... and forgotten.

bray wyatt finn balor
WWE.com

Twenty-four hours after a horribly disappointing and intelligence-insulting Payback PPV, WWE regrouped and put forward an episode of Raw devoid of two of its top stars: Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman.

But WWE did something surprisingly smart: It focused on solid in-ring action, with two cruiserweight matches, an eight-woman tag match and a blistering main event to carry the bulk of the program. Raw also featured an in-ring promo with the just-turned Cesaro & Sheamus that used a logical argument to actually explain a heel turn, rather than just telling the fans that they didn’t deserve an explanation.

We saw a new Raw Women’s Champion take her position at the top of the division. We saw several cruiserweights return to action. We saw a general manager tell wrestlers that they hadn’t won enough matches to warrant a title shot.

But we also saw interference mar a really good match. We saw a talented wrestler potentially stuck in the same vortex that plagued him previously. And we saw wrestlers remember that there is a Universal Championship… only to get distracted so the title and titleholder could disappear back into the shadows.

With that said, what ascended to the mountaintop, and what tumbled to the valley below? 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.