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

4. Alphas Pull Off Shocker

Viking Raiders Chad Gable
WWE.com

Every once in a while, you need to surprise your fans to keep them on their toes with matches. If you can predict every winner looking at the card, then you’ve got a bit of a problem.

On paper, the Viking Raiders should have squashed Alpha Academy, given the group’s strife in recent weeks and the fact the Raiders came over from SmackDown, so you’d think they’d get the momentum.

But it was Chad Gable, running circles around Erik and Ivar, who managed to keep both Vikings off-balance before finally rolling up Erik with a bridging O’Connor Roll. This was aided by Maxxine Dupri inadvertently distracting Valhalla, which can be seen as a good luck talisman, or accidental. It’ll be fun to see how they spin this, as Gable and Dupri haven’t seen eye-to-eye much.

Was this a one-week fluke, or the start of something better for the Alphas?

Advertisement
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.