6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (28 April - Results & Review)

1. Super McAfee To The Rescue

Things were bad enough when Pat McAfee appeared on Raw Monday night, just one week after suffering a pretty bad choke-out at the hands of Gunther. An argument could be made that he should have taken a week off to sell the attack adequately.

But then they announced that McAfee would address the assault later in the show. Deep breaths…

And it was worse. Way worse.

McAfee went on a lengthy, meandering soliloquy dotted with profanity where he talked about himself and how he wants to be remembered before finally getting to the point of being a loyal MFer, tying in how he had Michael Cole’s back last week, leading to Gunther’s attack.

Pat called out SmackDown GM Nick Aldis (filling in for Raw GM Adam Pearce) and demanded Gunther’s suspension be lifted so he could fight the Ring General. Instead, Aldis made a match for Backlash between the former World Heavyweight Champion and the guy who lost at WrestleMania 38 to Vince McMahon and eliminated himself from the 2024 Royal Rumble.

This was bad on so many levels. McAfee got a coveted PLE match while plenty of other talented wrestlers sit on the sidelines, and he got to use the crowd-pleasing shortcut of dropping profanity when half the roster could pop an audience if they were allowed to swear that much.

Rather than an announcer selling the severity of an attack from a former world champion, Pat McAfee was trying to be the hardest man in the room, calling out Gunther while spitting mad.