Evan Luebbe

Paul Heyman’s first week running Raw was a success! The only somewhat questionable decision was force-feeding Maria and Mike Kanellis, but Heyman loves Maria’s mind. This late June – early July timeframe may be the lowest point of the entire year for WWE. The Club reuniting, however, is sure to increase TV ratings because AJ Styles is a top superstar in the company, and character changes from top superstars always garner interest in the WWE product.

This move also provides WWE with a top heel faction to build around and pit top superstars like Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Kofi Kingston against them. The dog days of summer in WWE may officially be over and now we can focus on the build to SummerSlam.

It is so funny, because as I was watching the show and saw The Club again, I thought to myself “I bet The Club will reunite in the coming weeks, because WWE has been subtly hinting at this for weeks now. Gallows and Anderson just need to get their acts together and cut the silliness”.

Now it will be interesting to see the potential of AJ Styles as Raw’s top heel play out. We better enjoy it while we have it because AJ can’t have much longer as an elite performer. I’m surprised he’s lasted as long as he has, at 42 years of age (to provide context, that’s the same age as John Cena). All things considered; I absolutely love this move by WWE. The feud with Ricochet needs to continue, because Ricochet is a budding superstar as a face, something WWE desperately needs.

On a slightly less positive note, what transpired between Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley was very reminiscent of a 2013 incident between Ryback and John Cena, with Ryback driving John into the backstage area through the lights. This most recent incident was most likely done to get Strowman off TV for a while in order to heal up from a probable knee injury, which has hindered his level of speed over the last month or so (Dave Meltzer has also noted the injury on the Wrestling Observer Radio). This may be a good excuse to give Lashley a character overhaul and try something new

Side Note: Miz and Elias had a two out of three falls match (something WWE would like to do more of), which will undoubtedly lead to a Shane McMahon – Miz match at SummerSlam. This feud is continuing to be a detriment to the characters of both Elias and Drew McIntyre. Let’s just hope it’s not beyond repair because they both have a high level of potential to be performers who are heavily relied on for the next decade.

I am still waiting on Bray Wyatt to make an appearance somewhere as he has traveled with WWE for a few weeks, but still has not made his imminent return. It was also a rather pleasant surprise to see the NXT Tag Team Champions Street Profits as they are always a welcome sighting as they bring major energy with them wherever they go.

An applause has to be given to everyone in the entire WWE for making the 24/7 Championship relevant while simultaneously building up R-Truth. I figured it would be an absolute failure and no one would care that much about it.

Another extremely positive thing that is happening right now in WWE is the fact that Cesaro is being booked perfectly: A rugged tough guy who takes wrestling very seriously and punishes anyone who does not approach it as seriously as he does. This may be something to watch out for with Paul Heyman running things, because Paul worked with Cesaro briefly for a short period years ago, so there may be a small amount of hope for Cesaro to receive the push he has deserved for years now.

WWE can spot the obvious in this case that Ricochet and AJ Styles will produce incredible in-ring work. Like I said, this was obvious that WWE had to set up a feud like this, but they still deserve credit for making it come to fruition. Ricochet’s humility is not characteristic of a WWE superstar, but I like it because it is different and outside the box. There is also a certain level of grace and likability in Ricochet’s demeanor which is unique to him and it cannot be taught.

On a less positive note, I don’t know how to feel any more about the presence of The Undertaker. He should have retired 5 – 7 years ago and is not the same caliber athlete as he was then and he will only serve as a detriment to Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre and Shane McMahon, who can still legitimately go at age 49. It also does not make much sense from a storyline perspective because Undertaker lost to Roman Reigns two years ago at WrestleMania, so why would he want to team up with him? But clearly in WWE, once an event transpires, the very next week it’s like it basically never happened (short memory).

I cannot get very excited for the mixed tag match at Extreme Rules, even if it is for both championships (being Seth Rollins’ Universal Championship as well as Becky Lynch’s Raw Women’s Championship), because these mixed tag team matches are historically hard to coordinate the movements of the superstars because of the vastly different styles of the men and women. These matches are therefore awkward and feel a little slow. My hope is that they blow me, and the entire WWE universe, out of the water, however, because these are such great performers, tops in the industry.

Let’s be honest, did anyone even remember that The Revival were Raw Tag Team Champions, because I certainly didn’t, so The Usos will presumably be a nice change. R-Truth is getting a nice little spotlight since he has been 24/7 Champion. He plays the most entertaining imbecile ever, with remarks like his constipation reference.

Lastly, it was a brilliant and unforeseen move of the WWE creative team to have Samoa Joe go right after Kofi Kingston and the WWE Championship immediately after losing the United States Championship since he now has nothing to do in terms of going after a championship. He will be able to give Kofi a signature opponent where people will say looking back on Kingston’s reign “that match with Samoa Joe was easily the best one”. He did the exact same thing for AJ Styles in 2018. I thought WWE might let him hang in creative limbo for a while before maybe pulling the trigger on this because that is what they historically do, but it’s great for Joe that they didn’t immediately.