5 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 4th)

1. Phoning It In

fandango cream
WWE.com

There’s no polite way to say it: A big thumbs down to WWE this week for its decision to air a total throwaway episode of Raw Monday night.

You knew they weren’t even trying when the show opened with an extended food fight sequence, followed by a 16-man tag team elimination match that featured mix-and-match teams based on nationalities rather than alliances. Those two things are hallmarks of throwaway holiday Smackdowns, but for Raw to do this signaled a waving of the white flag before the show was 15 minutes old.

We could be looking at a colossally bad rating for this episode. If WWE was going to do this, they might as well have aired an Attitude Era rerun and plugged the WWE Network instead. At least that would’ve been more productive.

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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.