5 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Fb 28)

Ups….

5. Sidestepping The Promo Train

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to make a WWE trope look more “natural.”

WWE loves its promo trains to open Raw, but they can be excruciating most weeks. Monday, however, they found a simple way to make it work: have it be part of a talk show so the “interrupters” were just guests.

Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins hosted the KO Show to open Raw, talking about how they were screwed out of a WrestleMania thus far, but had one more shot via the Raw Tag Team Championship. KO made sure to run down Texas along the way to keep his rumored feud with Steve Austin alive before welcoming Alpha Academy down for an interview.

This is where you see good performers making WWE’s usual drivel shine much better than it has any right to. Owens and Chad Gable have great comic timing, while Rollins and Otis can play their parts pretty well. Gable and Owens traded barbs over inane stuff like how Chad says “Ah thank yewww!” The two then engaged in a back-and-forth with Gable shooshing KO repeatedly until Owens just unleashed a Stunner to end the segment.

The talk show masked the promo train, and the performers made the material modestly entertaining. We’ll take it.