6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (17 Mar - Results & Review)

2. The Bloom Is Off The Rose

Coming out of the Royal Rumble, Jey Uso was on fire, and his feud with Gunther was white-hot. The challenge – as has been mentioned here almost weekly – has been whether they could keep this moment for more than two months.

Sadly, the last couple of weeks have been sputtering, and Monday’s offering wasn’t the course correction it needed to be.

Uso faced Austin Theory in a strange squash that saw the two speed through an exchange before Jey nailed a running crossbody that knocked Theory out for the win. It was better in some ways than last week’s lackluster match against Grayson Waller, but it scanned more as a “we’re short on time” situation than Uso being a killer. (Had he super-kicked and speared Theory at the bell, that might have worked better.)

Jey battled Waller and Theory after the bell and went for a tope to the floor, but he took a tumble like Top Dolla did several years ago. Uso owned the mistake and thankfully was fine, but he then got jumped from behind by Gunther again rather than catching him coming. Jey fought Gunther off and posed with the World Heavyweight Championship briefly, but that was it for this week.

All the focus was on the other world title match this week, but the problem here is that Jey should be looking more credible by the week, like he can hang with and even defeat Gunther. Instead, the Ring General is having excellent matches while Jey is putting out turkeys and getting jumped by Gunther every week. He looks outmatched and outclassed when he should be showing signs of growth. Instead, his strongest point came in the weeks after the Rumble.

There’s obviously still time to turn a lot of this around and reheat the story, but that has to start pronto.