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

2. JD Not Welcome In The JD

Maybe everyone will wake up one morning and have a deeper understanding of JD McDonagh’s involvement in the Judgment Day storyline and really enjoy it. But for now, he feels like the kid brother trying to tag along and being constantly told to piss off.

McDonagh helped Damian Priest defeat Sami Zayn in the opening match Monday night, tripping up Sami as he was preparing for a Helluva Kick. Priest, however, wanted nothing to do with JD, and he left him for dead when Sami and Kevin Owens ganged up to drop the Irish Ace.

Later on, JD was a talking point for the Judgment Day, with Priest saying he doesn’t matter, and Finn Balor defending his friend and former protégé. That all just fed into the continuing unrest with the quartet, leading Rhea Ripley to say the quiet part out loud about the group: how they keep fracturing every week and it’s hard for people to take them seriously as a threat.

That’s not a good thing, when a wrestler in character is pointing out how ridiculous it is that the lead heel stable is becoming a joke because they can’t get their act together despite weeks of trying to patch things up. (Ripley threatening changes to the group if they don't all capture gold at Payback was a nice wrinkle, though.)

Maybe there will be a twist that brings it all together, and given how great the Judgment Day has been, you have to hope this is all leading somewhere positive. It would be a shame if this just melted away.

Advertisement
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.