7 Ups & 9 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 31)

What triumphantly returned to action and what was an unwelcome visitor?

by Scott Carlson
raw brand split
WWE.com

WWEs New Era got a bit of a jolt Monday night when the biggest star of the past couple eras returned after a five-month layoff to find a bunch of new faces occupying the roster. The returning hero quickly met three of those new faces, who left him lying in the ring, an unceremonious return.

But beyond that major development, we got our usual dose of jingoism for U.S. Memorial Day, complete with Titus ONeil defending America from the Bulgarian Brute Rusev. We also saw Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins do a whole lot of nothing, Natalyas kryptonite on full display, Apollo Crews get some help finding a purpose, Enzo & Cass toppling tag team legends and JBL making a fool of himself.

Fans were subjected to a weird sell job of the upcoming transition for Smackdown from forgotten offspring to Raws little brother, complete with a stretched-out, poorly defined mention of the new brand extension, which only served to make it look like Shane and Stephanie McMahon made a major announcement without knowing what they were doing. Sure, theres seven weeks to figure stuff out, but why would you do it like this?

So with that said, what triumphantly returned to action and what was an unwelcome visitor? Lets get to it

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Contributor

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.