5 Ups And 11 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 27)

1. AEW Rebuttal… Or Lack Thereof

After Sunday night’s AEW Double of Nothing PPV, you had to think WWE would pull out all the stops to show that the juggernaut was the dominant sports entertainment promotion, or at least remind fans that they were the biggest dog in the yard.

Man, were we wrong. What we got was a limp, lame, sad episode that frankly was an embarrassment.

A Memorial Day block party. More 24/7 Championship “defenses.” Nearly a full hour before the first match. Shane McMahon “wrestling.” Baron Corbin, WWE Universal Championship #1 contender. A talk show segment that died a slow death in its debut.

WWE even managed to renege on its pledge to address the future of the United States Championship, instead just having it announced that Rey Mysterio would relinquish the title next week. No word on how they will deal with the vacancy.

If fans watched Double or Nothing and then tuned in to Raw to see what kind of high-octane response WWE could muster… they probably are counting down to when AEW debuts on TNT.

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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.