5 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 1)

Priest debuts, Bliss transforms again, Edge moves on, Charlotte spared a loss.

Alexa Bliss Randy Orton
WWE.com

Buckle up wrestling fans, because we’re officially on that 10-week journey to WWE’s biggest PPV extravaganza of the year, WrestleMania.

Typically, this means, WWE starts firing on all cylinders, building toward this huge event and crafting storylines that will turn into matches for the evening(s). And it’s true, there are a handful of rivalries that seem to be dropping into place as we move past the Royal Rumble.

But that doesn’t mean things are clicking. Yes, we have our two Rumble match winners, and there are some feuds that look like they could be on the Mania card, but none of that means we’ve righted the ship after months of programming that is substandard at best, and horribly abysmal at worst.

Monday’s episode offered some glimmers of hope, but it was more about how they didn’t screw up versus how they triumphed. That’s never a good sign. The entire Alexa Bliss transformation and teleportation show continued, as WWE remains convinced that this is a great idea. The Hurt Business’ tag duo continued stretching out their strange, strained relationship. And the godawful Lacey Evans/Charlotte Flair rivalry continued with more shenanigans.

In short, it was a typical underwhelming episode of Raw.

Let’s get to it…

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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.