3 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (May 24)
Ripley's identity crisis, McIntyre wants re-match, Reginald: main event plot point.
For some, Raw on Monday night was everything they could have wanted: two matches topping 20 minutes and another three clocking in at 10+ minutes.
But Raw was a huge drag, even if the show moved along due to decent in-ring action. Competent wrestling is the bare minimum of what we should expect given that WWE is the wealthiest wrestling company on the planet, with the best in-ring talent ever assembled. If they can’t put on a competent wrestling show, they really should just go out of business.
However, Raw itself lacked cohesion, good storytelling and meaningfulness. The writers aren’t sure who their own characters are in some cases, or they know and the character flat-out suck. We sat through long matches without any clear direction, watched champions who are paper-thin, and listened to challengers make the case for themselves as they talked about who sucked less.
It all feels like a race to the bottom these days, with very few reasons to really get invested and interested. Drew McIntyre is becoming insufferable in his hypnotic quest to regain the WWE Championship despite losing multiple times. Rhea Ripley doesn’t know who she is. Sheamus has gone from brawler to brawler who needs shortcuts to beat jobbers. And these are the champions.
With that said, let’s get to it…