5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (July 5)

4. Falling Short

Jinder Mahal Drew McIntyre
WWE.com

In addition to the poor buildup to the first confrontation between former stablemates Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre, the match itself was disappointing with an unsatisfying result.

The bout wasn’t terrible, but it was abbreviated, with Shanky and Veer interfering for the DQ finish and post-match beatdown. However, the beatdown wasn’t convincing, and nothing was announced for next week, when the result was screaming for some sort of follow-up.

Normally, we’d expect the lack of foresight and planning from today’s WWE, but that shouldn’t excuse them from earning a “down” here, especially since they announced several other matches for upcoming Raw episodes, including a tag title match in two weeks. So why couldn’t they make mention of some match, such as a rematch with Jinder’s buddies banned from ringside? Or a handicap match against Shanky and Veer?

But as it stood on its own, this was just disappointing.

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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.