6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (22 April - Results & Review)

3. The Feud Must Continue

Remember way back on the Christmas edition of Raw when Imperium attacked Kofi Claus, kicking off a feud between the two talented teams?

Four months later, and New Day and Imperium are still butting heads in an unending rivalry. The groups had yet another match Monday night – you know its bad when New Day signposts it by remarking that they’d “already fought them so many times – leading to Xavier Woods getting the win for his team.

There was nothing wrong with the match, other than it was the umpteenth time fans had seen them square off during the past four months, and it existed for two reasons: to give Woods a pinfall heading into the King of the Ring tournament, and to finally pay off the start-and-stop turmoil of Imperium, with Giovanni Vinci being the fall guy.

The attack on Vinci was well done, but it also just felt like something that was put on the back burner for months and suddenly reheated at the last minute Monday night, rather than a long-simmering issue.

And what now? Does Vinci become a solo act? Does Ilja Dragunov finally join the main roster and partner with Imperium?

These would be great options, so this is hard to peg as a negative, but the overdone Imperium/New Day match and reheated dissension/attack on Vinci were not high points. Going forward though, this could get high marks.