8 Ups and 7 Downs From WWE Raw (June 27)

OK, who saw that coming?

For the past week, the conversation among wrestling fans online centered on Roman Reigns and his suspension, and how WWE would address the elephant in the room. Last week, Reigns was put into a triple threat match for the WWE (World Heavyweight?) Championship (more on that later) at Battleground, only for WWE to announce the next day that Roman had been suspended for 30 days due to a wellness policy violation.

Sure, his suspension would be done in time to compete at the PPV, but how would WWE address his absence? And what implications would that have for the title match? We got our answers Monday night, and anyone who saw that exact scenario play out should rush out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets.

Elsewhere, we saw the Intercontinental Champion return to action after filming his latest direct-to-DVD movie. We saw that Dean Ambrose is a fighting champion willing to face the entire roster at once, though that’s not necessarily going to be the case. We saw the women on the roster step up and have their first truly solid week in quite some time. And we saw Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens prepare to wage war one more time.

While there were several negatives catalogued, it should be noted that these were not “downs” that seriously detracted from an overly entertaining Raw. Most of the negatives are more areas for improvement.

So what worked and what was a round peg in a square hole? Let’s get to it…