7 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (May 16)

3. Dumpster Fire Booking

It took WWE less than an hour to completely overhaul its main event #1 contender’s match for the Raw Women’s Championship, and while it wasn’t necessarily the company’s fault, there was a level of weirdness to it.

Raw opened by announcing a six-pack challenge for a title shot against Bianca Belair. The match would pit Asuka, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, Naomi, Doudrop and Nikki ASH against each other. But about 45 minutes later, Lynch ran up to Adam Pearce to breathlessly tell him that the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions had packed their bags and left Raw. Yes, they just left Raw, and no explanation was given. (We later learned that this wasn’t originally part of a storyline, but a real walkout from the tag champs.)

Without 1/3 of the main event, Pearce did what any good official would do: he axed another 1/3 of the participants, making the #1 contender’s match a straight-up one-on-one bout between Asuka and Lynch, completely nixing Doudrop and Nikki from the match.

Just… what? Why? You could argue that the two Scots haven’t done anything to deserve being in a title contender’s match, but why were they in it in the first place then? Yes, it’s obvious that WWE had its hand forced by Sasha and Naomi walking out, but why not keep it a fatal four-way? Or even add Queen Zelina and Carmella to the mix to keep it a six-pack challenge?