The WWE Raw Reaction for May 2, 2022
Welcome to the Raw Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show in Greensboro, NC. It’s the last Raw before WrestleMania Backlash on Sunday.
As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth report here.
We kick off the show with Promo Time with The Bloodline. We get the same long entrance and blah blah blah. In the end, Roman wants Greensboro to acknowledge him…and the RKOs The Usos just ate from RK-Bro. There’s now a two on one face off in the ring, so here comes Drew McIntyre. Reigns and McIntyre fight until the Usos wake up and all six men fight, bringing out WWE officials to break it up. Where’s Teddy Long to book the six man tag? Oh yeah…
That was a great start to Raw and sold the PLC match. What’s going to happen on Smackdown? Also, the gaping logic hole was not even addressed tonight so maybe Smackdown?
Speaking of six man tags, here’s The Street Profits with Elias’s younger brother, Ezekiel, in his Ultimate Warrior cosplay, to take on Alpha Academy and Kevin Owens. This was a really fun tag match. I’m not quite sure the direction Ezekiel is going to go in yet. He does have the Ultimate Warrior look down pat. Owens tripped Ezekiel so Chad Gable could get the pin. I’m surprised that Ezekiel took the loss here. but we’ll see where it leads to.
AJ Styles gives away the ending to his match with Damian Priest by announcing the stipulation for the match. If Styles wins, Priest is banned from ringside for Edge/Styles II. Gee, I wonder who’s going to win?
Adam Pearce is in a six-person tag match mood as he tossed Sonya Deville into a six-woman tag teaming with Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch to take on Bianca Belair, Liv Morgan, and Asuka for our main event. Deville is also told her executive power is suspended for tonight and she’s just another competitor. And so it starts…
Veer Mahaan’s latest victim cuts a promo with Byron Saxton that was longer than his actual match. It was a nice promo from the hometown hero.
Damian Priest makes his way to the ring with Edge next for his match with AJ Styles. Edge cut a promo ripping the local fans before Styles came out. The match was very good and both looked great. I think with a little bit more seasoning in this pairing with Edge, Priest could become a main event level talent and viable title contender by year’s end. Styles won (surprise, surprise) with a rollup after a hard fought match. After the match, Edge and Priest double-team Styles until Finn Balor made the save. Balor has the talent to pull off being a face helping Styles as Finn Balor while having Demon Balor as part of Judgement Day. That would be really interesting to see. The question now is, who joins Judgement Day at WrestleMania Backlash?
MizTV is up next. Miz is in his ring gear, so this is going to set up a match. Mustafa Ali is the guest. Miz runs down Ali while Ali has a dead microphone in his hand. Miz wants to get his heat back from losing last week. Theory shows up and gives Ali a Championship Contenders match next as a handicap match with 50/50 booking. Ali lost so he could give Miz his win back. That’s literally all it did. After the match, Ciampa attacked Ali again, for whatever reason he has.
“Earlier today” the 24/7 crew was arguing over the title and Nikki A.S.H. pinned Dana Brooke to capture the title and proving her gimmick is slowly circling the drain. Terrible acting follows with Brooke telling Reggie to get her title back.
We have a match and nobody cared. Brooke won her title back and fighting over it resumed. Can we please make this go away forever?
Promo Time with Seth Rollins is next. It is supposedly Seth Freakin’ Rollins Appreciation Night. It’s not on my calendar, so I’m not too sure about that. Rollins talked about the Rhodes family history in Greensboro. Cody came out to offer a counter point before they fight. Cody sent Rollins from the ring to close the spot. The promo was good and all, but Rollins was just out there to kill time.
Bobby Lashley comes out to beat up Cedric Alexander while MVP and Omos watched.
Reggie is getting divorced and R-Truth is a divorce attorney because why not?
Doudrop asked Nikki A.S.H. if she’s ready to be serious and Nikki said yes. We’ve got a gimmick change coming and new heel challengers for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships. Yay?
It’s main event time with the six-women tag match. This was another entertaining tag match with some solid action in it. All three feuds had some small face offs in it. It progressed things very well. The end came when Deville tried to pin Morgan with her feet on the ropes right in front of the referee. The ref would count the fall and Deville tried throwing her weight around. The ref ignored her and Morgan hit Oblivion for the win. I was shocked Morgan actually picked up a win. The faces celebrated Morgan winning for the team to close out the show.
Let’s take a look at tonight’s highs and lows.
The Highs
It was a historic night on Raw as our two main event six person tags (Bloodline/RK-Bro/Drew McIntyre and the women’s tag) had the faces actually not look like total chumps like they are usually booked. The stereo RKOs on the Usos and Morgan actually picking up a win go against most face booking and that was rather refreshing to see. I’m not expecting it to continue into next week, but it was something nice to see for sure.
It was a solid night of action in the ring, excluding the 24/7 stuff. Stories progressed well for the upcoming PLC.
The Lows
I know the 24/7 title nonsense makes Vince laugh, but he’s the only one laughing. Yes, it’s easy weekly TV time but you’ll likely never recover from the stench it’ll leave on you. Truth is the only one who can make it work and he’s struggling to get this thing to move to the next step week after week. Let’s just cut bait and move on.
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That’s all I’ve got, until next time.