5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (20 May - Results & Review)

4. In Service Of The Angle

The Intercontinental Championship feud has had a rough couple of weeks, and Monday’s events were not encouraging. To be fair, there are some positives to talk about when it comes to the show-opening match, but man was it rough getting to that point.

Sami Zayn’s promo trying to lay out the stakes of the upcoming triple threat title match fell a bit flat, save for threatening Chad Gable, which then led to Alpha Academy coming out and the reveal that the two were set to face each other five days before King and Queen of the Ring. That’s prior era stuff there, booking two-thirds of a title match in singles action five days before the PLE.

During the match, Gable repeatedly tried to get his charges to attack Sami while he was down and Chad distracted the referee. Each time, Maxxine Dupri, Akira Tozawa and Otis hesitated and ultimately refused, enraging Gable. And for each of these crises of conscience, Zayn had to lay on the mat or floor for a solid 20 seconds selling. That did him no favors.

Gable got the win with some eventual hope from Otis, making the point that if the Number One Guy comes through on Saturday, we’ve got a new IC champ. But you’ve also booked your champion to lose less than a week before defending the title to a guy more concerned with turning his stablemates heel than inflicting damage on his opponent – if Sami was knocked out for that long during the match, think about the injuries Chad could have caused.

The overall goal of making Gable a massive tool worthy of derision was ultimately achieved, but this route had some collateral damage in getting there.