6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (31 July - Review)
Judgment Day falters, Gable steps up, Brock/Cody have a misfire.
With just days away from SummerSlam, WWE rolled into Monday Night Raw with the card mostly booked and just a couple outstanding questions: What would the stipulation be for Brock Lesnar/Cody Rhodes III? And would they make Becky Lynch/Trish Stratus official for Saturday?
The shocking thing was that neither of these questions received a positive answer. No stipulation was announced, and Trish/Becky actually “happened” Monday night before it was bumped two weeks to Raw in Winnipeg.
With that decided, how did the go-home Raw fare?
Overall, you’ve got to give passing marks on the strength of a few good matches, some good video packages, a better-than-expected in-ring confrontation between Logan Paul and Ricochet, and the potential for tension in the Judgment Day arrived at in a creative manner.
WWE overplayed its Cody/Brock hand a bit, though it shouldn’t diminish the overall vibe of this feud. Gunther and Chad Gable absolutely ruled the ring, but they pulled a bit of bait-and-switch with their own matchmaking. And seeing two former NXT Champions wrestle a total time-filler of a match was just depressing.
Still, SummerSlam should be really good this weekend, and they managed to not kill interest in the show.