7 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 15)

1. Follow The Braun

Putting aside the over-the-top decision to fire Braun and rehire him within an hour, the ongoing saga of “Where in the World Is Braun Strowman?” went on a few segments too long and bordered on comical after a while.

The first hour included numerous cutaways to Braun demolishing the backstage area, including tipping over a semi-truck cab, which was the moment that the entire angle jumped the shark. (While tipping over a 10,000 pound ambulance was awesome but implausible, deadlifting a tractor that weighs twice as much was just ridiculous.)

Even Booker T nailed it when he asked why the cops hadn’t been called yet. Braun ran wild backstage for nearly an hour before GM Kurt Angle considered calling the police because a trespasser was assaulting employees and damaging property. Strowman was fired because he contributed to an unsafe work environment, but it was OK for him to roam around the back like that?

It felt like they were trying to duplicate one of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s rampages backstage during the late 90s and just fell short and then overdid it.