5 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (May 3)

1. Killing Interest

Rhea ripley Asuka Sonya Deville Charlotte Flair
WWE

A few weeks back when Charlotte Flair attacked Asuka and Rhea Ripley, this writer thought it was a great move to insert the Queen into the feud, adding a dimension to it and planting Flair squarely as the heel in the equation.

Fast-forward to Monday, after Charlotte had been suspended and reinstated, and she was busy giving a long and boring speech to Sonya Deville about how the latest heel authority needed to insert her into the Raw Women’s Championship match at WrestleMania Backlash.

And then Ripley came out. Did the dominant champ threaten to destroy Flair like she beat Asuka? No, of course not. She complained about Charlotte not earning her spot in the title match. Because that’s what serious champions do. (At least Asuka was true to herself and said she’s beat both women.)

Making matters worse, the WWE Championship match is also a triple threat, so rather than having a natural build to this match, WWE managed to WWE it by throwing all this crap into the mix and made it feel like it was artificially forced into existence.

In one segment, WWE managed to ruin interest in what should be an awesome feud to carry the women’s division for a couple of months, and make their shiny new Raw Women’s Champion sound like a whiner. Congrats WWE!

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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.