5 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Raw After WrestleMania 35

3. Where’s The New Blood?

lars sullivan kurt angle
WWE.com

It’s become a tradition on the post-WrestleMania Raw that a bunch of new superstars will debut, and injured ones will return to action. This is a great way to reset the company and start off in several new directions.

Last year alone, we saw the debuts/return of AOP, Bobby Lashley, Ember Moon and No Way Jose. In the years prior, we’ve seen the likes of Paige, Kalisto, Neville, Rusev & Lana, Enzo Amore & Big Cass, Apollo Crews, Revival, and Finn Balor all have debuted or returned after Mania.

This year’s crop? Lars Sullivan and Sami Zayn. That was it.

Yeah, you can argue that we saw several call-ups in December and then Ricochet & Aleister Black a couple months ago. And the Superstar Shakeup is next week, but when you combine this with just a p*ss-poor episode booking-wise, a lack of newcomers drags the show down even further.

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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.