4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (27 May - Results & Review)
3. Choo-Choo!
No, that’s not talking about the Strowman Express – though it did make an appearance Monday night.
Monday Night Raw also saw the return of the 20-minute show-opening promo train, with four – Count them! Four – entrances. And very little new ground was broken in the process. Gunther came out to bask in the moment after winning King of the Ring on Saturday. He talked about bringing prestige back to the Intercontinental Championship and the KOTR tournament, and he planned to do the same thing for the World Heavyweight Championship.
This naturally brought out Damian Priest and the rest of his cohorts, with the champ explaining to Gunther how the Money in the Bank briefcase works. The two bantered back and forth a bit, previewing a potential SummerSlam world title match. That’s when Drew McIntyre came out to interject, because he’s up next for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Gunther left and Drew walked through a geography and wrestling lesson about United Kingdom wrestling and how hard Scottish people are. Priest tried to get under McIntyre’s skin by referencing his wife, but before things could get interesting, Braun Strowman came out for his match against JD McDonagh – and a staredown with Damian.
That’s 20 minutes of banter to re-establish everything that was set up in a three-minute span during the PLE Saturday: Gunther won King of the Ring and Triple H announced that McIntyre would challenge Priest for the title at Clash at the Castle. The end. This was exposition for exposition’s sake, reminding the slowest of slow-witted fans that Gunther has a title match, but it’s not fully decided whether he’ll face Priest or McIntyre. If only they could explain that in a graphic and save 15 minutes…