All’s well that ends well, many across the world believe. We would have to disagree with this assessment, honestly. If you’re putting together a three-hour long show, you can’t have an amazing last half-hour and just pack the rest of the show with filler, WWE. Such programming leaves a sour taste in our mouth.
Pardon us as we go off on a rant in our ‘Best and Worst’ recap of the red brand. This wasn’t the worst episode of Raw that we’ve seen really, but it could have been so much more, if more thought and effort had been put into it, really. Here’s our review and assessment of what went down at Sacramento, California.
#1 Worst: Raw and its central problem
Think about all the episodes of Raw leading up to Wrestlemania. They were either built around part-timers such as Lesnar, Goldberg or The Undertaker, or the Kevin Owens- Jericho saga, with Reigns contending for the championship. Since Wrestlemania, Braun Strowman has been on a rampage and WWE has pushed him to the moon and back.
With the part timers no longer on the show, Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens on SmackDown Live; and Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman pretending to be injured, Raw this week was lacking in star power. All the genuine stars left in the brand were packed into the main event spot, whereas the rest of the show was packed with filler segments.
In 2017, with so many forms of entertainment available to us, people have limited attention spans and watching anything for three straight hours can be tiresome. So, if you're presenting a show that long, it better be worthwhile for the fans watching. This episode of Raw was not.
The need of the hour is to create genuine Superstars and WWE is succeeding to an extent with Strowman and Bliss. Unfortunately, in some cases, they are just creating middling talent, as we will touch upon later in this very article.
#1 Best: The main event was awesome
Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, and The Miz worked together to create pure art. Their moves were expertly choreographed, the false finishes left everyone guessing as to the outcome of the contest, and even the interferences tied many loose ends together (such as Wyatt confronting Balor on the Titantron, on the day of the Superstar Shake-Up).
Not even the constant shots that kept cutting to the crowd, could distract us fro the action inside the ring.
It is great to see that a crowd that had lost interest in the proceedings suddenly came alive when a match this good was presented to them. While we’ve seen Dean Ambrose and The Miz before, Balor and Wyatt should be a fresh new feud with many exciting supernatural possibilities.
#2 Worst: 50/50 booking – the real reason why Superstars can’t get “over”
Enzo and Cass defeated The Club on the Payback kickoff, only for Enzo to lose to Gallows in a singles match on Raw, the very next night. People take Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman seriously as top-card players, only because they win more matches than they lose!
There is a chance to elevate Enzo & Cass as well as The Club by picking a team and making them appear superior to the rest of the entire roster. However, trading wins will help nobody at all in the long run.
#2 Best: Worship the goddess of Raw
A lot of the women in WWE’s current roster can wrestle better than Little Miss Bliss, very honestly. However, when Alexa picks up the microphone, she proves why she’s in a different league as compared to the rest of the roster.
Heck, this week, she actually made Bayley lose her composure and attack her when she insulted Bayley's family. In a lot of ways, she is not unlike The Miz. Not a cool heel like Jericho was, but one that can really get under your skin and in doing so, elevate the babyface in the program.
This is a necessary trait, because even during the iconic feud between Charlotte and Sasha Banks, while the actual matches were great....the Raw episodes in between had become quite tiresome.
#3 Worst: Multi-man matches
From the 8-woman match at the start of Raw to the 6-man Cruiserweight match, nobody cared about the multi-man matches this week. Modern wrestling fans are smart and they realise that WWE is just filling time with such utter dross. Maybe actually writing good stories instead can help the entire roster?
#3 Best: Perfect explanation
Sheamus and Cesaro are two very different individuals in the same tag team. This aspect was highlighted in their promo this week, with Sheamus saying he never really liked the fans, to begin with. Cesaro is playing a man who has lost faith in the world, and that aspect also seamlessly fit the narrative.
This is a character reboot that the team really needed to succeed in the long run because without it, they really have very little going on for them. We usually end with pictures of beautiful women on the roster, but let’s end with something far more beautiful. The sight of a picture-perfect match that capped off Raw, this week.
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