6 Ups & 3 Downs from WWE Raw (30 June - Results & Review)

Pittsburgh's wrestle-daft masses slammed down their hard-earned cash to see an epic card of WWE action on Monday night. The company's trip to Saudi Arabia for Night Of Champions meant an exhausted crew rolled back to the US for a twin live Raw and taped SmackDown special. Good news: The Raw portion was largely positive and featured title changes, Grande returns (ahem) and even the lure of some Gunther bouts that'll make purists smile.

There's a lot going on in the World Title scene on Raw, and it seems WWE's writers are already looking right past returning (and retiring) legend Bill Goldberg. It's slightly disappointing that the ex-WCW man wasn't in the house live, because that didn't give Gunther much of a chance to sell their Saturday Night's Main Event clash properly, That wasn't the only downer.

WWE totally telegraphed a match finish ahead of time, which dampened an otherwise lively crowd, and real questions need to be asked of how Triple H has handled Raw's tag-team division. Those 'Downs' are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, admittedly.

A quick glance at the differing counts between 'Ups' and 'Downs' reveals that this was a solid show overall. There's more good than bad to report, basically. The best of it came when Gunther, Seth Rollins, CM Punk and LA Knight interacted, as well as once Sami Zayn put his working boots on to hit the ring for a logical main event. Creative started lining up matches for Evolution as well, and that should play before cheers for anyone worried about the impending PLE feeling empty.

Here's a review of Monday's flagship.