9 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Raw (May 11)

1. Chairshot Regression

In the wake of the Chris Benoit tragedy and the focus on concussions and head trauma, WWE went to great lengths to not only ban chairshots to the head, but to basically erase them from its video history. Go watch older videos, and you’ll see a strange “skipping” effect when a chairshot to the head is imminent.

But Monday night, we saw Humberto Carrillo dropkick a chair right back into Bobby Lashley’s face. It pretty clearly looked like an unprotected shot – that Lashley didn’t get a hand up to protect himself.

Now, it’s quite possible – and likely – that the chair was gimmicked, or simply a very thin aluminum-like prop. The chair didn’t exactly sound like it was made of steel when it was kicked into Lashley’s face. But still, after more than a decade of retraining audiences and with all the knowledge we have about the effects of concussions, why in the hell would you even do this, even with a gimmicked chair?

At least the Randy Orton conchairto on Edge was pretty clearly done in a way where no contact was ever made with the head.