5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 24)

2. Gargano Clowning Around

Johnny Gargano The Miz
WWE.com

Whatever WWE is aiming for with Johnny Gargano in this main roster run, it ain’t working.

Since coming back to the company, Gargano has been involved with former protégé Austin Theory and now Miz (and his ongoing feud with Dexter Lumis). These are both carryovers from his NXT days, which is a nice bit of continuity.

But Johnny Wrestling has been spending more time doing bad comedy bits with Miz recently. It’s not funny, and it’s making him look more like a jerk than a taunting babyface. He spent Monday joking with R-Truth, threatening to “blow the whistle” on Miz’s secret and then just disappearing, only to return and serve as a distraction in Miz’s match against Truth.

Then later during his match with Baron Corbin, Gargano inexplicably stopped to put on JBL’s Stetson and dance on the announce table like a goof rather than focus on the match.

Why? How is this making Gargano a likeable babyface? He was the heart and soul of NXT. Now he’s the mean-spirited “babyface” court jester of Raw and a mouthpiece for Lumis.

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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.