5 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (29 April - Results & Review)

1. A Lackluster Go-Home Raw

Ricochet Jey Uso Andrade
WWE

Just in case fans forgot, there is a PLE this Saturday. You’d be forgiven if you didn’t realize this watching Raw Monday night.

As a WWE draft special, this episode was fair-to-middling, but as a go-home Raw before a PLE, this was dismal. Part of the problem is that Raw is currently contributing just one match on Saturday’s card, the World Heavyweight Championship contest between Damian Priest and Jey Uso, and that angle was disappointing this week.

The best parts of the show involved a feud between two injured superstars (CM Punk and Drew McIntyre) who might not wrestle each other for a few months and an Intercontinental Championship feud that is still taking shape and not on the card for Backlash France.

Even with the draft elements, Raw was dull and lacking star power. That’s due in part to the comedown after WrestleMania, with The Rock disappearing and the Bloodline no longer crossing over, but also due to Cody Rhodes heading to SmackDown, leaving a huge void when it comes to filling three hours of programming, and it was noticeable Monday night.

WWE is going to have its work cut out for them to recapture the magic of the pre-WrestleMania programs. And if they can’t, it could be a very long spring into summer.

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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.