5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (20 May - Results & Review)
King, Queen of the Ring semifinals highlight an otherwise average show.
Wrestling in 2024 is a very strange place that you could never have imagined five years ago. There’s no chance that a WWE fan in 2019 would talk about how an episode of Raw was carried by the strength of the wrestling and strong character development on the show.
But here we are, and here was this week’s edition of Raw, where the semifinals of the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments delivered exactly what one might expect – really solid in-ring action that made all four wrestlers look like a million pounds. Raw also produced a convincing, pulsating squash that tingled with electricity as WWE effectively re-introduced a young superstar to the audience.
Raw also produced some good character moments for Chad Gable and his Alpha Academy minions, though how WWE got there was less than ideal, booking the Intercontinental Champion to look weak in the process.
The show’s two tag matches shined a spotlight on one of Raw’s biggest flaws these days, as both the men’s and women’s tag divisions are in desperate need of a cleanup and some real focus, whether that’s in the form of better angles, better promos, better matches, or a combination of all three. And a singles title feud is sputtering to the finish, having seemingly run out of material before they could get to the PLE.
All in all, not a bad episode, but certainly one with several weak spots.
Let’s get to it…