7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw
Cliffhanger ending? Sure. Idotic? Absolutely.
The final Raw before the WWE draft and the new era of brand extension started with a thunderous ovation, and then went out with a massive whimper rather than any semblance of a bang.
Raw promised to deliver two things: GMs for both shows, and WWE Championship match. It delivered both fairly well, but things fell apart in the final five minutes of the show, when a stunned referee couldn’t manage to get seven words out: “Both men’s shoulders were down for three.” The result was an ending to the title match that left the characters, the announcers, the fans and the viewers in a state of confusion, and not in the good “I can’t wait to see what happens to clear this up” kind of way.
Still, Raw put on a decent show Monday night that tied up loose ends for Sunday’s Battleground PPV and stoked the flames for Tuesday’s draft on Smackdown. How that draft and the PPV shake out are different stories, but things are at least teed up as well as can be expected. Sure, there are the typical negative marks for questionable booking choices, but overall, we know where things stand heading into the next two live events, and that says something.
With that said, what was the top draft pick and what was left untouched on the draft board? Let’s get to it…
Downs...
7. Car Crash In Waiting
In many ways, this is a head-scratcher. Was Stephanie McMahon pandering when she named Mick Foley as her GM, or does she honestly think he’s best-suited to run Raw? Sure, the fans loved seeing him again, but it still was confusing after the reaction wore off.
Even Shane McMahon dialed in on it later, surmising that Steph picked Mick because of his connection with the crowd (true) and because she felt she could easily manipulate him. To his credit, the Hardcore Legend didn’t bite, saying he and Stephanie share the same passion and goal of making Raw the top brand.
Still, this is a strange relationship. Is this going to lead to Stephanie influencing Mick and turning him into a heel slowly? Or will they butt heads a lot? Or will Stephanie just operate in a weird vacuum as a heel commissioner with a face GM?
Beyond that, the dynamic between Foley and Smackdown GM Daniel Bryan is a little strange too now. If you’re going to have competing figureheads, shouldn’t one be heel and the other face? (Think back to Eric Bischoff running Raw and Stephanie running Smackdown. Steph by default was the heroine.)
Still, it was good to see Mick back in the fold, and this gets only a tepid “down” for now. We’ll just have to wait and see if this is a positive overall.