9 Ups And 10 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 6 )

1. Vince McMahon

vince mcmahon wwe raw
WWE.com

The buck stops with the man at the top. Whether you want to believe Vince McMahon is deliberately burying his talent or any conspiracy theories/rumors out there is immaterial.

The simple fact is that this episode of Raw was terrible. WWE came into Monday knowing that last week’s episode of Raw hit its lowest non-football rating in modern history, and that they needed to stop the bleeding.

The solution? Lead off with Vince McMahon and then have three SmackDown wrestlers “invade” Raw, showing how unpredictable Raw can be.

And then the show fell back on every trope and petty, juvenile move we’ve seen during the past several years. Seth Rollins and AJ Styles were forced to team up despite being opponents at the next PPV. Revival was turned into a punchline because they might be leaving the company. The Usos were turned into comedians instead of a killer tag team establishing themselves on Raw. Sami Zayn was literally thrown away in the trash.

But hey, Shane McMahon shrugged off two solid chairshots without so much as going to a knee. And we heard all about how the Lucha House Party loves to have fun. And we weren’t bored with in-ring action from Samoa Joe, Rey Mysterio, Cesaro or Cedric Alexander… or a teased tag match between Revival and the Good Brothers (The Club).

If this episode is how WWE responds to its worst ratings in eons, then they – and we mean Vince – clearly don’t get it.

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Contributor
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.