7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 17)

WWE is hurtling toward two major PLEs in the next month, so they have the unique task of building two cards simultaneously without seeming like they’re trying to book two shows at once.

In the Vince McMahon days, we’d be lucky if they even had the first show’s card fully booked before the PLE started, much less have an inkling of what was coming for the second show. But the new regime has dropped enough breadcrumbs in their storylines that you can see stuff taking shape already.

Raw set up two new matches for the upcoming Crown Jewel show, with a six-man tag match and a huge grudge match between heavyweight bruisers Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar. The latter match was sparked by a massive pull-apart brawl between Lashley and Lesnar that saw the Beast laid out, which itself is a rarity.

The rest of Raw was solid, if unspectacular. There were enough good moments to make the show fly by, with negative minimized, but at the same time, there wasn’t anything truly memorable beyond the opening segment and the closing angle (which had segments sprinkled throughout the show) involving Mustafa Ali and Seth Rollins.

You can’t call Raw an absolute must-see program, but this wasn’t a bad way to spend a Monday night at all.

Let’s get to it…