6 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 8)

1. An Idiotic Evil Plot

Someone invariably is going to make the comment that this column should be happy that Cedric Alexander got a main event tag match slot alongside Roman Reigns, rather than poo-pooing it.

But the mystery man plotline simply was a stupid gimmick that benefited no one.

Think about it: Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre spend the entire show looking for an inept mystery man to be Roman Reigns’ partner in the main event. They hit upon a janitor with a limp and recruited him. But the boss’ son and his henchman didn’t bother investigating when the “janitor” came out and was a foot shorter and suddenly wearing a luchador mask.

Meanwhile, Roman Reigns never bothers to have a conversation with his tag partner, at which time he’d learn that he’s actually teaming with a former WWE Cruiserweight Champion. And lastly, the match was so rushed that we got about 90 seconds of action, including about a minute of Cedric flying around the ring before being immediately laid out by a Claymore so Shane could get the pin.

So who got “over” with this? Shane and Drew are idiots, Roman was negligent (and laid out for a full minute from hitting the ring post once), and Cedric got about 30-45 seconds of shine – under a mask – before losing to the boss’ son.

And the actual match this was supposed to promote? Eh.