WWE Raw: 10 Things You Might Have Missed (April 21)

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...