WWE Raw: 5 biggest mistakes WWE made on the night after Extreme Rules (July 15, 2019)

Extreme Rules was a decent pay-per-view which gave us some good matches and a fair share of surprises.

After the event, fans could not wait for the first episode of Raw as they wanted to know how the Universal Championship will be used heading into SummerSlam, and who will stand up to Becky Lynch next.

While we expected Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley to take a break after their grueling match on Sunday night, WWE provided them no rest as they too were back in action just 24 hours later.

Apart from that, WWE made many mistakes during this week’s Raw after Extreme Rules which puts a huge question mark on the creatives’ decisions and the fate of the Superstars involved.

In this article, we will look at the 5 biggest mistakes WWE made during Raw this week.

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#5 Handpicked the Battle Royal contestants

WWE wasted just 24 hours before bringing out the new Universal Champion Brock Lesnar on Raw after his title win on Sunday. Paul Heyman was by his side and he reminded fans that he promised Lesnar would leave Philadelphia with the title.

Heyman then announced that a Cross-Branded Top 10 All-Star Battle Royal would be held later in the night to determine Lesnar’s challenger for SummerSlam. Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Big E, Cesaro, Braun Strowman, Rey Mysterio, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn, Bobby Lashley, and Roman Reigns were the men announced for the Battle Royal.

While it made sense to have the top guys from both brands compete in the match, why were the participants handpicked, and on what pretext?

Cesaro, Bobby Lashley, Baron Corbin, and Rey Mysterio lost their previous matches convincingly and shouldn’t have jumped up into the Universal Championship picture straight away. Sami Zayn’s inclusion after losing many matches and even his WWE Championship opportunity a few weeks ago didn’t really fit in either.

WWE should have used some better criteria to pick the men for the Battle Royal to make it more convincing rather than making the winner obvious even before the battle began.

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#4 The Mike & Maria treatment

What is WWE try to do with Mike Kanellis and Maria here?

Zack Ryder was scheduled to take on Mike Kanellis when Maria appeared and said she was taking the match. She wanted to prove that she was the head of the household but no one would let her get into the ring.

Afterward, as Mike got into the ring, he immediately ate the Rough Ryder by Long Island Iced Z and lost in mere seconds. This gave Maria the opportunity to further chastise her husband, saying her unborn child had a better shot of winning the match than Mike.

While WWE is no stranger to such content, it makes no sense to bring in two superstars who were largely overlooked over the past couple of years and have them square off against the champions first, and then make the matter between the couple.

#3 Booked Balor vs Joe

At Extreme Rules, Finn Balor walked into the arena wearing the Intercontinental Championship around his waist but walked out with nothing more than a loss. Similarly, Samoa Joe walked into one of the biggest opportunities of his life but lost his match against Kofi Kingston for the WWE Championship.

While both men were fresh off losses, WWE decided to book these two top men in a singles match without any context rather than throw them into the Battle Royal too. This was certainly a time when neither men could afford a loss as they were fresh off championship match losses.

What followed was even worse, as a man as destructive as Samoa Joe relied on a roll-up victory on his much smaller opponent. To cover things up, WWE allowed Balor to then unleash an attack on Joe after the match to make both men look strong until Bray Wyatt arrived and made fans forget the entire segment that took place before Sister Abigail.

#2 The Tag Team division

At a time when Raw’s tag team division was struggling, we had the B-Team as our Raw Tag Team Champions. This was followed by many other makeshift tag teams and WWE jumped at the opportunity of moving many teams to Raw during the Superstar Shakeup.

While that has been the case, it seems like a mistake that WWE is wasting The Viking Raiders by feeding them ordinary competition while The Usos and The Revival are battling at the top of the division.

SmackDown has given Heavy Machinery, New Day, and Daniel Bryan and Rowan good chances in the past few weeks, while Raw isn’t doing the same with all the tag teams in the division.

What’s worse is that the talented team Authors of Pain is also waiting on the sidelines to make a comeback and could well do so at the middle of the division and face off against The Viking Raiders.

#1 Seth Rollins’ Battle Royal victory

I’m sure many of you wouldn’t have had to think twice before guessing who’d win the Battle Royal. With Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Braun Strowman serving as the only real threats in the Battle Royal, it was an obvious choice to make.

While we are glad that we’ll get to watch Brock Lesnar take on Seth Rollins once again, it was odd that WWE booked a Battle Royal to pick who will face Lesnar at SummerSlam.

They could have gone down many routes, such as a 4-Way Elimination No. 1 Contender Match, a Gauntlet Match, or even better, added Becky Lynch to the mix.

Becky could have been used perfectly in this situation as she could have come out during Lesnar and Heyman’s segment and trash-talked the two men before challenging Lesnar to face her boyfriend like a man unlike he did after the Extreme Rules match on Sunday.

This would have surely worked much better and added fuel to the chemistry between Becky and Seth while giving Lesnar the opportunity to pick his challenger purely out of anger.