7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (12 Aug - Results & Review)
Priest and Ripley fend off the Judgment Day, Breakker pushed to limit, Reed finds next victim.
Last week, WWE seemingly reset a good deal of its angles and characters on Raw, treating SummerSlam as something of a midseason climax. The result was a show that was widely praised as one of the better episodes of the year.
Monday’s follow-up leaned heavily into the positives of last week’s program, choosing to focus on the Judgment Day implosion and reformation, leaving Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley on the outside standing together against their former stablemates. The crowd heat in the building was off the charts for this one, so WWE was wise to go full bore with the opening segment and match.
Another major success from last week had to be Bronson Reed’s reintroduction as a killer, attacking Seth Rollins and putting him on the shelf with six Tsunamis. Since that worked so well last week, WWE clearly decided to run the play again Monday night – with a new victim.
Then there’s Bron Breakker, who has seen his stock rise in recent weeks. But how would he fare in a high-stakes main event against Sami Zayn? Monday was everyone’s opportunity to find out.
Not all was great, as there were some predictable hiccups and even some of the positives carried hints of concern, but another hot crowd helped push the show along, as WWE’s mantra seems to be “accentuate the positives, hide the negatives.”
Let’s get to it…