7 Ups & 3 Downs from WWE Raw (19 May - Results & Review)
3. Hot Crowd Elevates Opening Tag
A tag team bout featuring AJ Styles and the Judgment Day in the year of our Lord 2025 should not have been a red-hot, three-segment match. But the fates were at work Monday night.
Styles teamed with Penta to take on Finn Balor and JD McDonagh in a long midcard tag battle that saw all four men work well together to keep the crowd energized and into the action. While they played the hits, they mixed in a few nifty spots, notably McDonagh trying to fly in off a blind tag to break up a Calf Crusher, only for Styles to pull Balor into JD’s path.
A pier six brawl outside the ring toward the end came off very well, giving way to El Grande Americano unleashing his dreaded loaded mask headbutt on Penta, which allowed Balor to get the pin.
If you shut off the part of your brain that says Gable’s duality gimmick is silly/offensive and that Penta shouldn’t be jobbed out like this multiple times, then this was perfectly enjoyable. And really, it’s probably time to abandon any hope that Gable (and American Made at this stage) will climb out of mediocrity, or that Penta will be a true singles star.
Once you accept that as reality (while hoping to be pleasantly surprised), then matches like this are easier to grade positively.