8 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Aug 5)
Go-home Raw hits stride with better writing. More of this please.
There’s no denying that Raw has seen a dramatic upswing in quality in recent weeks. After being extremely skeptical of several of the initial angles (24/7 Championship, Kanellises, etc.), things are panning out in a somewhat logical way.
The format has been switched up a bit. Legends are being used in strategic ways. Dialogue is sharper. Storylines seem a bit clearer.
If this is part of a long-term push by Paul Heyman, then bravo. If it’s just a happy happenstance with SummerSlam around the corner, then we’ll take it and go back to b*tching next week. But put plainly, WWE needed to change, so it’s good to see some marked improvement at a point where the company desperately needed to do so.
We saw a lot of Samoa Joe Monday night, caught a glimpse of Roman Reigns, saw Seth Rollins get turned into dog chow, and witnessed a tag title change. We saw squashes, two 24/7 Championship title changes and a pretty good one-on-one match.
Raw wasn’t a home run by any stretch, but when the goods outweigh the bads, it certainly helps the overall product.
With that said, let’s find out what lived up to its potential and what just disappointed. Let’s get to it.