8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 15)

1. Dividing Matches

The convoluted, contrived ways to split up matches continued in earnest Monday night.

We got yet another 2-of-3 falls bout for no given reason in a six-man tag, while another six-man tag was broken up by Ricochet interfering and attacking AJ Styles, which somehow resulted in a match reset rather than a DQ. The women’s four-way elimination match had odd breaks too, where we were to assume that the wrestlers just stood around for two minutes waiting for commercials to end before resuming the match.

This is seriously becoming a major, major problem on WWE programming. There was a time when 2-of-3 falls matches were a big deal, a way to settle feuds (or to defend the WWF Tag Team Championships on Saturday Night’s Main Event) so there’s be no doubt who won. But now it’s a gimmick to help break up the match so we don’t miss any action during a commercial break. (Worse, remember how some 2-of-3 falls matches were won in two straight falls? Not so much here.)

The match resets due to interference also have become annoying, as what previously would be a DQ just becomes an opportunity to pause and then restart the match two minutes later.

All of this has to stop, as we’re now getting these very oddly paced matches with Survivor Series-like pinfalls that mean nothing because there’s still two more falls in the match. Someone needs to bludgeon Vince McMahon into submission on this one.