4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (27 May - Results & Review)
Mostly disappointing, almost boring in-ring action with a couple of small bright spots.
It was impossible to watch Raw Monday night and not feel like it was a patched-together, emotionless show designed to simply fill three hours and arrive at a couple of predetermined conclusions.
The wrestling was mainly subpar, bordering on boring several
times with only one match reaching “entertaining” status. A lot of the drama
was unconvincing, and the attempts at humor weren’t funny. The crowd reflected
the dull nature of Raw, sitting on their hands throughout the show and only
really coming up at a few points during the night.
This was a Raw without Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, The Rock or CM Punk, who supplied the electricity for the first four months of 2024. It included a very subdued and almost phoned-in performance from Becky Lynch. And this was the first Raw to not feature the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments, which provided a significant boost to the show these past few weeks.
In short, this might be the first Raw of the year to not ride the wave of the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania 40 builds or the post-Mania comedown, or rely on gimmicks like the draft or KOTR/QOTR to prop up the programming.
Granted, this is only one week and shouldn’t be considered a harbinger of what’s to come, but it’s hard to ignore that this was a pretty big disappointment coming off a mostly solid PLE and heading into another premium live event in less than three weeks.
Let’s get to it…