8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Aug 22)

5. Dud(leys)

dudley gallows anderson
WWE.com

What the actual hell was that?

For the past few weeks, it looked like we were building to a split of the Dudley Boyz, with D-Von clobbering Bubba Ray and Bubba returning the “favor” at SummerSlam. Everything seemed to be in place for the duo to break up and possibly for Bubba Ray to embark on a solo career, which worked well for him in TNA.

Instead, we got a retirement announcement and segment, which felt like it was leading to Bubba turning on D-Von. Instead, the Shining Stars came out to interrupt and get beaten down… and then Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson came out to take out the Dudleys.

While that might have made Gallows & Anderson look strong, it basically rendered what felt like decent storytelling moot. Was that actually a sendoff for the Dudley Boyz? Will they charge ahead as a team and ignore their retirement? Yes, there are questions, but it feels more like a left turn out of nowhere, not an intriguing development.

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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.