Raw 22nd May

So, what did RAW have to offer us this week?

Bray Wyatt comes out first. Hooray! Though WWE still doesn't realise he's a babyface. And it still annoys me that they don't pan around behind him during his entrance, though judging by some of the videos and pictures that have appeared on Twitter it's entirely possible that they don't want to pan around to an empty section of the arena. Additional production gripe; it's annoying me how quickly the lights come back on once Wyatt blows out his lamp. I think a second or two of darkness with a slow fade back in of the lights would be a bit more powerful and look a little more polished. 

Wyatt's personality and charisma is magnetic as the crowd is basically eating out of the palm of his hand, but his promo content still needs to be a little more coherent. It just seems at times like he's rambling. I get that he's supposed to be this weird cult leader type and so it'll always sound a little odd, but the content does need a bit of cleaning up. I wonder what Wyatt could produce with a serious writer sitting next to him in the back, working collaboratively just to try and give his promos a little more focus and a cutting edge.

Interruption Era though! Reigns comes out. Angle comes out and books Reigns vs Wyatt for tonight. But rather than leave it till later in the main event so people have a reason to watch the show all the way to the end, or at least come back for the finale, WWE book what is basically the main event to happen right away? Why? And I'm already bored of the build up for this fatal five way. It's just going to be an endless combination of tag teams and singles matches between the five with no real spice to it. They're just eating time until Extreme Rules comes about and by that point we might be sick of them.

Me personally I'd have preferred to see them book a round robin tournament, with two matches each week, giving one guy a night off in each case. The purpose would be to add a bit of interest to the next couple of weeks, giving people a reason to tune in and find out who wins, and perhaps culminating in the two with the best record facing each other at the PPV, or maybe just the final set of matches happening on it (not sure off the top of my head how many weeks are left till ER). Wrestling - fundamentally - is about promotion. The build up is more important than the end result, because the anticipation and the build up is what actually puts the butts in the seats.

So back to RAW and we have a pending intense match up between two really intense guys that kicks off with... a headlock? Fuck me, really? Why would you start the match like that? It gets worse though as pretty soon Wyatt has Reigns set up for Sister Abigail and despite the fact that Roman hasn't taken that much punishment yet he immediately goes into suspended animation and just hangs there, at least until he needs to escape that is. It looks fucking ridiculous. Reigns's corner clotheslines are equally abysmal. They just look so ineffective and laughably odd. Reigns actually throws a pretty good looking right hand, so why not have an agent pull him to one side and say "dude, stick to what you do best yeah?". The three man booth is also starting to annoy me again. It just feels too cluttered.

But wait! The interruption era continues as Samoa Joe comes out to cause a DQ and start a bit of a party in the ring, which prompts Seth Rollins to take a break from surfing to make the save, hair still soaking wet and the top part of his wetsuit still missing. Seth however misses the chance to capitalise on this run in for a solid TV moment by making eye contact with Roman and having a stand off, instead preferring to leave Roman just staring at him like an idiot while he looks around like a headless chicken. 

Backstage Elias Sampson shows up and apparently nobody realised he was on the roster. Odd that. Angle almost literally says that he's forgot to book Elias lately. Followed by a Cruiserweight match. Who are these people? Who even cares? Never mind. Sasha gets ambushed backstage by an interviewer because WWE is incapable of just doing regular interview spots like they used to and like virtually every other sport in the world does. Instead it has to be a walk and talk. And shit me, we're getting Banks vs Fox again later?

Back from a commercial and Elias is in the ring to face Dean Ambrose. So he debuts on RAW without an entrance? Nice. His singing gimmick was awful. If Lana's dancing is as bad as Sampson's singing then she's fucked. More pertinently, why would you book someone to have a singing gimmick IF THEY CAN'T FUCKING SING?!! I mean really, how hard is this to understand? People like Kayfabe Commentaries have made some good money out of their guest booker series and people like to make it out like booking a wrestling show is the hardest thing in the world, some arcane art known only to a handful of people. But really it's not. For example, don't give someone a gimmick where they have to sing if they can't actually fucking sing. As Jim Cornette would say "this isn't brain science. It's not even rocket surgery".

Match is so entertaining that the commentary team wanders off topic for most of it, though Miz is outstanding in his contributions, and Booker T of all people has to drag the conversation back to the ring. I get the impression Booker is regretting coming back to do commentary for WWE and I wonder how he would work in a two man crew with someone like a Tom Phillips? Miz eventually intervenes by attacking Sampson and costing Ambrose the match, the DQ finish linking to their match at Extreme Rules and basically foreshadowing the potential for Miz to quickly capture the title by getting Ambrose disqualified. It's amazing heel work.

Backstage Enzo is out cold on the floor due to a surprise attack as he's basically relegated to being a pure jobber now, just without the TV time for the people that beat him up. Given how over Enzo and Cass are with the crowd, even now, this is such a spectacular mishandling that it might just rank as one of the all time great booking fuck ups, taking something that is pretty popular and seems to shift a lot of merchandise and just slowly killing it over time for absolutely no reason. It's like the Alex Riley and Zack Ryder deals all over again, where WWE does everything it can to prevent people who have gotten themselves over from succeeding. I just cannot understand the mentality of WWE at times. It's beyond bizarre.

Finn Balor out next, taking an hour to get to the ring and get started. Fair play to him though for the reaction he gets as it was decently loud. Thankfully his boring promo is cut short by an interruption!! This time it's Paul Heyman. Not sure who Heyman is looking at for most of his promo as he keeps staring off towards the hard camera as he comes down the ramp, despite the live camera being right in front of him and Balor being in the ring. Heyman does a great job giving the rub to Balor, putting him over like a million dollars and giving him some relevancy after being left out of the tag match later. It's actually a clever idea to take Finn and give him effectively a segment all to himself. 

Unfortunately I'm not buying it. Finn is still a charisma vacuum. And I simply cannot buy for a single second that - of all the people in this coming fatal five way match - Brock Lesnar is most interested in facing Balor. You really expect me to believe that Lesnar sees a top guy like Reigns, the only other person aside from Brock himself to have ever beaten the Undertaker at Wrestlemania, as a victim, but he sees Finn as a potential challenge? Fuck off. Unless Brock is intrigued by the prospect of facing Balor because he thinks Balor will be the easiest to beatdown?

Anyway, Gallows and Anderson come out to silence. We go to commercials and come back to find the next match already underway, because now apparently WWE isn't even able to time its own segments properly. Presuming as I am that this was actually intentional then I'd love to know the rationale behind it. Why would you want to make yourselves deliberately look like you have no idea what you're doing? I did like Finn's more aggressive, relentless, almost primal offense in this match though. It's how a small man should fight against a bigger guy in a wrestling match. Indeed, this is how I'd like to see a babyface Alexa Bliss fight as "five feet of fury" if WWE ever decides to pull the trigger on that. I hate Balor's double stomp finish though as it looks unsafe as fuck. Even though the guys can clearly work it, it does seem like one of those "if we fuck this up even slightly then Gallows dies" type finishes. Is it really the best WWE can come up with? Do they know that Pro Wrestling is supposed to be a work, where you pretend to hit each other but don't really?

Sasha Banks vs Alicia Fox is next. Sasha still acts like a heel, her entire entrance and gimmick being basically a textbook example of heel work, yet she's booked as a face? Because WWE. Nothing match, nothing finish. I have to ask; what was the point of this? It didn't seem to achieve anything other than being the "rubber" match between then two. In which case why not settle the feud at Extreme Rules? Fox attacks post-match, presumably to set up a fourth bout? Fucking really? Trust WWE to have taken their initial cat fight from a few weeks ago, which looked so good and so natural at the time, and flushed all of its promise as a surprise feud down the toilet. Congrats.

Next up, yay Goldust promo? Lol no. What the fuck is this all about and why would anyone want to see Goldust have another run? And as what? What is Goldust going to do other than maybe beat R-Truth? Then what? Is he going to have a six month feud with Roman Reigns? Of course not. Next, Alexa Bliss backstage interview? Fuck yeah!!! Gets a good reaction from the crowd as well, though this whole "can Bayley get extreme?" thing is already getting tiresome already, mainly because people keep repeating that same phrase over and over again and it all just sounds very awkward and forced.

Kalisto vs Apollo Crews next, in the battle for who can get the mildest reaction from the crowd. The story of Crews, an amazing athlete with an amazing look, is a testament to how fucked WWE's writing staff are. How is Crews not massively over with the audience? How has such a quality base talent been turned into such a lacklustre end product? Can't even remember who won, probably Crews.

Hardy boyz out next to a big reaction. Sheamus and Cesaro make the most awkward looking entrance in WWE. Matt Hardy wins and gets to pick the stipulation for the tag match at Extreme Rules. Rather than picking something that would naturally favour the Hardys he instead goes for a cage match, which would seem to better favour Shesaro. Because... WWE.

More 205 boredom. At least it does a good job of building the Aries/Neville feud, which feels like the most intense of all the current WWE feuds. This has built up and built up over time and has some decent heat behind it. They've slow cooked it beautifully. It's just a shame that I don't really care about either guy. If this was a main event feud it would be gold.

Mickie James out to fight Alexa Bliss next. Mickie is the queen of no reaction right now which is a shame because in ring she's a good hand. No promos and no programs of interest will do that to someone though. This match was most interesting because it provided a damning indictment of the men's division and a tip of the hat to the women's division in that Alexa threw the best looking punch of the night, indeed one of the best punches I've seen in a WWE ring for a long time, as well as quite a brutal looking DDT (till WWE had to show a slow-mo of it and ruin the moment). These two women also seemed like the two people most involved in an actual fight tonight. This is great for the women's division and I hope it continues. Maybe the men will take note and step things up a little? Bayley comes down for the save to a pretty modest response. I think people are beginning to take Alexa's side against her.

Tag main event to finish the show, not too bad, but the spot with Roman accidentally hitting Seth was set up a bit too predictably. It just needed to not be telegraphed from a mile off. I've actually forgotten who won this and who ate the final pin, such was the interest that WWE have built in it. 

Overall a blah show, but not as bad as the week before. Still no spark though. It's not unmissable TV by any means.