3 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw After WrestleMania 37

1. Where Are The Debuts And Returns?

Charlotte Flair
WWE

There was a time in the not-too-distant past that the Raw after WrestleMania meant that new beginnings for WWE. We would see several new wrestlers debut from NXT or return from lengthy injuries, freshening up the roster and injecting the show with new life and new blood.

But Monday’s program merely featured the return of the Viking Raiders. That’s it. You can’t count Charlotte Flair returning after a month away. We didn’t even see anyone new highlighted. Keith Lee is still completely absent from Raw. Ricochet, Riddick Moss, Jinder Mahal and Mustafa Ali were still in catering, or the locker room, or wherever. Reckoning, Nikki Cross and Peyton Royce couldn’t be found.

No new storylines of significance were launched on Monday night. Drew McIntyre is getting a rematch for the WWE Championship – which is fine. Charlotte Flair has been added to the mix for the Raw Women’s Championship, which is good, but not a completely new angle. The new United States and Raw Tag Team Champions weren’t anywhere to be found.

Quite simply, this might be the worst post-WrestleMania Raw in at least a decade. Period. WWE took whatever goodwill they earned from Mania and flushed it. Congrats guys. *Slow clap*

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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 fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.