6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Results & Review - 22 Jan)

1. Clown Show

R-Truth’s antics have their place on WWE programming. He’s an entertaining guy who more often than not manages to turn chicken poop into chicken salad.

But inserting his goofball routine into the Raw main event didn’t do anyone any favors. It made Truth look even more like a person who had suffered too many concussions and should be examined for cognitive impairment. It made Damian Priest look like a geek for allowing himself to get completely sidetracked by a clown in what was shaping up to be a completely serious, hard-hitting rivalry between he and Drew McIntyre.

Truth attempted to give Priest his cut of bootleg merchandise sales mid-match, leading Damian to shove Truth down and yell at him. R-Truth responded by hopping on the apron to get Priest’s code for his Money in the Bank briefcase, because – ha-ha – it’s funny! It also led to the ref missing Priest’s pinfall on McIntyre and allowed Drew to score a Claymore for the win.

More importantly, what’s the goal here? Is it to turn Priest babyface? Because the end game here should be Damian murdering Truth next week for costing him the match. Attacking a babyface like Truth won’t accomplish that, obviously. But Priest forgiving Truth also makes little sense here – the Judgment Day pseudo-member was 100% in the wrong here, and his character probably isn’t mentally capable of understanding that he screwed up.