6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (13 April - Results & Review)

4. Ladder Match Preview Accomplishes Its Mission

WWE Raw Dragon Lee Je'Von Evans JD McDonagh Rusev
WWE

In a completely unsurprising move, WWE booked a Raw main event match that essentially was meaningless in terms of who won or lost, but it was a tremendous success.

Je’Von Evans and Dragon Lee teamed up to take on JD McDonagh and Rusev in something of a strange bedfellows match involving four of the six men in the Intercontinental Championship ladder match. The goal here clearly was to dazzle the fans with some high-octane action to fire everyone up and whet their appetite – if they could do all of this in a straight tag, imagine what chaos will unfold with Penta and Rey Mysterio added and a bunch of ladders thrown into the mix.

This was good fun from bell to bell, with Dragon Lee getting the win with a Styles Clash on McDonagh. Then, in another good piece of booking, Rusev destroyed the entire field, including Rey and Penta, establishing him as the monster in the ladder match, which makes sense since he’s the only non-high-flier of the six. It also sets the scene for the five to get their collective revenge on the Bulgarian Brute this weekend.

Good stuff here to actually set the table for the ladder match rather than just fill time and go through the motions.

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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.