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

2. Agents Aren’t Agenting

One of the important roles agents play in putting together a wrestling show is to make sure the matches and angles aren’t too repetitive. You shouldn’t book three count-out wins in a row, or two monster heels destroying jobbers in back-to-back matches.

And yet, Raw opened with three matches that saw the heels gang up on the babyface to really stack the deck against them. Bobby Lashley had to contend with MVP and Cedric Alexander while wrestling Omos inside a steel cage. He only prevailed by luck, going through the cage and being able to put his feet on the floor.

Right after, Theory played bait-and-switch to have Veer Mahaan face Mustafa Ali, with the Miz as special guest referee. Miz and Theory interfered and made things difficult for Ali, allowing Veer to pick up the win. And then after that, Jey Uso cheated liberally to help his brother Jimmy against Riddle, though the Original Bro prevailed.

It was pretty noticeable for the first two matches to include very similar dynamics, which makes you wonder why they didn’t just space things out a bit better. But throw that third match out there and it’s just overkill.