5 Ups & 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (June 7)

5. Jaxson Ryker, PTSD Babyface

Jaxson Ryker Vanilla Beardman
WWE.com

Let’s set aside for a minute the social commentary that landed Jaxson Ryker in hot water last year and led to his (and his stablemates’) sidelining.

Ryker separated from Elias last week after the troubadour short-armed him during a Raw Tag Team Championship match, leaving Jaxson to get beaten alone. On Monday, Elias told us that Ryker had become unhinged. He said he looked in his “cold eyes” and saw “the ghosts of war.”

That really sounds like he’s describing a veteran with PTSD. Oh, did we mention that Ryker is the presumed babyface in this split? Jaxson would go on to pick up a count-out win in a nondescript match that was about as forgettable as anything else.

Now, throw in the fact that Ryker’s Forgotten Sons stablemates – who lost a push and TV time because of Jaxson’s mindless tweets – are now released from WWE, and you have another reason to really not rally around Ryker the babyface.

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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.