WWE Raw: 10 Things You Might Have Missed (April 21)
Did Raw keep building momentum?
Last week's Raw was one of the best episodes of the show in a long while. There were three great matches, stunning debuts, and the forward momentum that, even at three hours, Raw often lacks. This week, in front of a hot London crowd, could WWE keep up the good work?
The answer was... kind of. There were a couple of strong matches in the form of Chris Jericho versus Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens versus Dean Ambrose, but those bookended the show and the middle certainly dragged. WWE followed up on the debuts of Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows in interesting fashion, but the build to the Roman Reigns-AJ Styles title match at Payback almost felt like an afterthought.
With Reigns and Styles only briefly featured, the show belonged to the midcarders - and it felt like a midcard show. WrestleMania is over, the part-timers around whom that show was build are gone, and it's more evident than ever that, as rich as the company's roster is, it's full of men who haven't been treated as main event players.
Payback looks like a strong show from a match quality standpoint, but it probably wouldn't draw very well on traditional Pay-Per-View. Still, the company did try to promote it with Raw, and that's a major step in the right direction.
Here are 10 things you may have missed from last night's show:
10. Booking For The Crowd
Raw opened with the first proper episode of Dean Ambrose's "Ambrose Asylum" talk show, and his guest was Shane McMahon (who, surprise, surprise, was running things again). He started to deliver the same played-out rhetoric about new chances for new stars, but Kevin Owens interrupted him. Soon Sami Zayn followed, and finally, Chris Jericho hit the ring. Shane booked the men in two singles matches for Payback, then the faces cleaned house.
The whole thing felt like a bit of pandering to the London crowd, who are known for being hardcore fans and for having a "smart" reaction to WWE events (not unlike a NY or post-WrestleMania crowd). Most of the Internet favorites were there, and the ones who weren't were mentioned - Shane basically took credit for pushing AJ Styles and Sasha Banks, even though they were doing pretty well before he showed up. The fans popped for the mentions, though.
Thankfully, Kevin Owens got off a good line about Raw being the same old McMahon-controlled product, but even that could have been designed to appeal to us smart fans. Hmmm...