One thing that no critic – short of purely bad-faith ones –can say is that WWE Raw does not have a sizable number of active feuds,rivalries, and storylines swirling around its three-hour broadcast. Monday’s go-homeprogram ahead of Bad Blood packed a lot of them in, setting the table forSaturday’s PLE, as well as next week’s episode of Raw. Overall, the show provided a solid hard sell for thepresumed Bad Blood main event, with CM Punk and Drew McIntyre delivering their closingarguments in subdued, dramatic fashion.
The program also set up three bigmatches for next week, including two title bouts. It also provided somesignificant development in the ongoing saga involving the New Day and theirgrowing friction. Even some of the antics that fell on the negative side includedactual storyline developments, with former tag team champions breaking up, and anotherset of former tag champs returning to save a friend.
If that wasn’t enough, Raw began with a heartwarming Jey Usomoment, and closed with a chaotic demolition derby between Bronson Reed andBraun Strowman that saw the return of a former world champion. Certainly, noone could say that Raw was boring on Monday night. Let’s get to it.
...