4 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Aug 23)
Miz and Morrison explode, RK-Bro celebrate, and Logan Paul gets booed out of San Diego.
WWE Raw hit San Diego, California for a lukewarm SummerSlam 2021 fallout show last night, albeit a more newsworthy one than regular viewers have become accustomed to in this content-first era.
The Miz and John Morrison split up in an angle that has been built for weeks, including at SummerSlam, where Xavier Woods doused them with a water pistol. Eva Marie and Doudrop finalised their own split elsewhere on the card, while Drew McIntyre found a beefy new buddy, RK-Bro celebrated their Raw Tag Team Title success, and Charlotte Flair learned her next opponent as Women's Champion.
But while many wrestlers set off in new directions last night, plenty more were left spinning their wheels. Booked by the numbers with regards to how its angles, promos, and matches were built and executed, Raw was often mechanical and repetitive, as WWE made little effort to match the excitement built for Brock Lesnar and Becky Lynch's seemingly imminent SmackDown returns.
Attendance-wise, SummerSlam was WWE's single biggest show of the year. This was a meek follow-up. The new directions offer little hope of a creative upturn heading towards Extreme Rules, Crown Jewel, and Survivor Series, despite the good things going on on FOX.
Raw gonna Raw.