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

2. A Solid Main Event, But…

There’s no denying the chemistry that Gunther and Chad Gable have. Their rivalry has been short, but it has been one of the better parts of Raw in recent weeks.

And their Intercontinental Championship match, with Gunther’s ability to set the record for a title reign hanging in the balance, was a really good, consequential main event on Raw Monday night. The final five minutes were an insane frenzy, with Gable countering everything the Ring General did and overmatching him at every turn as he clamped on an anklelock, nailed the Chaos Theory, and fought out of a sleeper before finally succumbing to a powerbomb and lariat combo.

But there’s no denying that it felt fractured and rushed, with ring entrances not starting until there were 20 minutes left in the show, and two commercial breaks eating up about one-third of the 16-minute match.

In reality, this should have been given at least 20 minutes, perhaps even doing an extended commercial break just before the match to minimize the breaks. Either of the women’s matches could have been scrubbed, or they could have hacked five minutes off the Ricochet/Shinsuke Nakamura match since it ended in a DQ anyway.

WWE spent the entire show hyping the IC title match, and then instead of delivering a PLE-quality contest, they produced a typical TV main event, albeit a really cool one with serious stakes. This should have been a huge success, and instead, it just felt like a pat on the back.