7 Ups & 6 Downs For WWE Raw (21 July - Results & Review)

Downs…

6. Masked Foolishness

At what point does the El Grande Americano gimmick completely jump the shark?

The answer might be that it already did the moment Chad Gable went down with an injury.

Ludwig Kaiser filling in as the masked “luchador” should be a silly enough proposition to work, but it doesn’t feel like it’s gelling, particularly when Dragon Lee is involved. Lee was made to look like a geek Monday night, arguing with El Grande backstage before seconding the LWO in their tag team triple threat.

Dragon would attack the Creed Brothers after they shoved him down – a great babyface trait – before El Grande appeared to take Lee out. The Creeds would argue with Americano before they were taken out of the match.

What is actually going on here? Are the Creeds feuding with Kaiser for stealing the Americano gimmick? Is Dragon Lee trending toward finally winning a feud and toppling El Grande? Or is this all just a lot of treading water until the original principles of the angle – Rey Mysterio and Gable – get back?

If so, this angle might be DOA by that time, because it already feels like it’s on life support half the time. Maybe it’ll turn a corner, but the El Grande story feels like a space-filler rather than something desirable and enjoyable.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.