6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (April 11)
Cody shines, Belair duped, Lashley swears revenge, Priest channels blue light.
Who would have thought that focusing on some set angles and giving matches time to breathe would lead to a mostly enjoyable – if underwhelming – episode of Raw Monday night?
Raw might still be lacking a world champion (or even a United States Champion, as Finn Balor wasn’t on the show either), but it started strong with a Cody Rhodes segment that painted him as an outsider who isn’t part of the WWE machine simply by pairing him up with the most WWE guy in the company: The Miz.
Throw in two tag team matches to close out the bulk of the last hour and you had a really entertaining finish – though of course, it would’ve helped if the main event wasn’t an impromptu match made by Randy Orton involving the SmackDown Tag Team Champions. That kind of “booking” is lazy, annoying and unacceptable. But we won’t even count it as a negative because it’s just as common as the pyro, ring ropes and outdated pop culture references.
That’s not to say that Raw wasn’t without its downers too. We’d challenge anyone to figure out what the hell was going on with Damian Priest during his match, and watching Tommaso Ciampa’s underwhelming welcome to the main roster had you saying, “At least he didn’t job to Commander Azeez.”
Let’s get to it…