5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (22 May - Results & Review)

Downs…

5. A Pointless Interruption

wwe raw arena
WWE.com

Ah, the opening show promo train. Perhaps WWE’s favorite trope. Someone comes out to talk, and they’re interrupted, only for someone to interrupt them, and they talk and talk for 20 minutes, presumably to set up the show’s main event.

The in-ring portion of Raw opened Monday night with Paul Heyman putting over his charges in the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship match, only for the tag champs to interrupt, sending Heyman scurrying off. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn then chattered for a bit before Imperium – their opponents for the night – interrupted them.

The trio looked to surround the ring and use the numbers game to their advantage, but – shockingly – KO and Zayn’s tag partner for the night, Matt Riddle, ran down to even the odds. A brief brawl broke out and the faces sent the villains off.

What literally was the point of all of that? It was exposition on top of exposition on top of a 15-second fight. And we knew nothing more than we knew when the segment began.

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Contributor
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.