Yeah, the only people who have any sort of direction on RAW's Women's division are Charlotte and Alexa Bliss. Everyone else is either just a bit player or an afterthought.

Even though WWE did a terrible job with her Mania build, Bianca has felt like a much bigger star and future top star of WWE's women's division than Ripley despite Ripley being the one who was getting all the high praise and as a "can't miss" top star of the future that not even WWE could manage to screw up.

I walked by my roomate watching RAW and saw everyone scared of a doll....A DOLL IS NOW THE MOST OVER FEMALE!!

The main event was fun. Braun destroying people is always entertaining.

Drew vs. Lashley was very good until Braun crashed the party and the whole thing ended via DQ.

Outside of Drew vs. Lashley and the 8-Man tag matches, RAW was really boring and dull overall this week.

RAW has felt mostly lifeless compared to SmackDown and NXT and even other wrestling shows. Like SD has been just a one storyline driven show in recent months but that one storyline with Reigns has been way better than all of RAW's stuff combined. Even something like NPJW Strong that barely has any storyline stuff and has suffered a lot from the empty arena setting still feels more lively than RAW these days.

Smeat doing God's work. Or maybe Satan's. Cannot imagine sitting through Raw every week.

How many times did you see Hulk vs Macho or Hulk vs Warrior on Raw ending clean? What about Rock and Austin? Of course they are not going to give you this match clean on Raw.

My main issue is WWE does that style of finish way too often these days and feels like its gotten way worse over the past year or so. Even the amount of no contest finishes feel like its gone up in usage in recent times.

Plus was feeling very bored of the show until that match happened and to get that buzz kill of an ending left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Also majority of the time, it comes across as WWE doing it just for the sake of it because they constantly back themselves into a corner booking-wise instead of being an actual important or integral part of an on-going storyline.

Hulk v Macho never happened on Raw. Nor did Hulk v Warrior. Rock v Austin happened 4 times with 3 non-finishes.

I think the wider issue is that Braun/Drew/Lashley have been involved in DQ and distraction finishes for most of the last few weeks. You want to keep guys strong but there are more interesting ways to do it.

Lance Storm had mentioned that for him it’s nigh-on impossible to get invested in any Raw match, especially the main events, because he’s been conditioned to assume there won’t be a finish in the first place.

Preview for tonight's show:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We had the craziest dream last night involving zombies.<br>That'll teach us to smoke something <a href="https://twitter.com/SuperKingofBros?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SuperKingofBros</a> gives us.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RAWTonight?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RAWTonight</a></p>&mdash; WWE Creative Humor (@WWECreative_ish) <a href="https://twitter.com/WWECreative_ish/status/1394317527648509956?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Lashley now just banging a bunch of chicks, now that's a gimmick!

Lashley channeling his inner Ric Flair tonight.

Got the stylin and profilin part down. The Space Mountain ticket likely already booked. All that's missing is a random "wooo" or him doing a random elbow drop to his clothes for this opening segment.

guess his wife did not sign a contract

Styles vs. Elias happening now is a bit weird since WWE doesn't really like to do heel vs. heel matches.

yeah who will come out the face teem.

Probably Styles & Omos since Styles has been doing the "face in peril" stuff a lot recently in matches despite him being a heel.

Then again, wouldn't really matter who turns face since RAW's tag division has been a mess for a long while.

:| at the lame DQ finish for Styles vs. Elias

Minus that ending, that might have been Elias' best singles match on the main roster in a long while.

well aj can get a good match out of a mop

WWE airing a match hype vignette for tomorrow's North American title cage match and not just some generic style commercial NXT is interesting.

They didn't really bother putting that type of effort during the Wed. Night Wars when that would have been way more effective and meaningful for the brand.

randy the best part of raw

:lol: at Tamina's reaction to being on Alexa's Playground.

That was the best part of a bleh segment.

On one hand, its nice that Drew Gulak is finally getting some quality screen time and an actual feud on RAW.

On the other hand, his feud with Angel Garza revolving around a rose getting stuck up his ass is soo stupid and probably would have been better off just chilling in catering.

:lol: R-Truth

Wonder what it is about today's era of wrestling that wrestlers seem to get busted way more often in the mouth than in the past.

Like the Attitude Era was way more violent and bloody in terms of shots to the head and face but feels like bloody mouths have been way more common during the last 5-10 years in wrestling.


Also so far tonight's matches have either ended via shenanigans or was a squash. Orton vs. Kofi was no different.

Poor Shanya Baszler, doesn't deserved this BS booking on RAW nor being the sacrificial lamb for this shitty Alexa Bliss spooky stuff.

Also make that 4 for 4 on tonight's matches ending via some lame shenanigans or was a squash.

Worst part is the Women's Tag title match was actually looking to be a potentially good match before the Bliss stuff happened.

I remember Ken Shamrock bleeding from the mouth in like every single match and Jim Ross always yelling "HE'S BLEEDING INTERNALLY!!"

:lol: at Ricochet boinking Sheamus on the head with that splash to the outside. Either he misjudged the jump or Sheamus was a bit too close for the dive.

:lol: at the ref botching the pin count.

Sheamus vs. Ricochet was pretty good and also managed to break tonight's streak of matches not having a satisfying or clean ending. Easily the best thing on tonight's show so far.

Oh god the zombies might be returning tonight since Damian Priest vs. John Morrison just got revealed for later tonight and as a Lumberjack match.

Only saving grace is if Miz & Morrison are now zombies after what went down last night. If not, why even bother bringing back what was arguably the worst part about last night's Mania Backlash show.

Either Asuka or Charlotte had an accidental boob slip or someone in production accidentally pressed the wrong button and cut the video feed for a bit.

:eek: at Asuka beating Charlotte. Sure it was via shenanigans but a win is a win.

Asuka vs. Charlotte was very good and Charlotte's best singles match since her return last year.

Yeup, the zombies stuff from last night was extra stupid since Morrison isn't a zombie after all.

:eek: at a rare Nikki Cross sighting on RAW.

Must be a bit short-handed for people backstage if they needed her to be one of the lumberjacks.

Ouch at Morrison landing hard on his tailbone to the suplex to the outside since the Lumberjacks were way too close to catch him properly.

Lumberjack match ended up being pretty good.

yep time to move on

Probably won't happen but this Open Challenge match for Bobby Lashley would be a great way to debut someone new for the RAW brand.

Too bad it won't because of Triple H becoming very stubborn with call-ups in recent years and he would rather just hoard as much talent as possible for his NXT brand instead.

Kofi being the big mystery challenger is a bit of a buzz kill.

Why did WWE bother recapping what MVP said earlier unless they are having a laugh at fooling fans into thinking tonight's big hyped up Open Challenge match was for the WWE title.

:lol: at Kingston beating Lashley via shenanigans.

Match itself was nothing special after all that hype done for tonight's show.

Tonight's show was average at best overall. First half was mostly meh while the second half was mostly good. Only stuff I'd recommend is the Sheamus vs. Ricochet and Asuka vs. Charlotte matches. Everything else ranged from good to really bad.

Preview for tonight's show:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Most of our morning has been spent trying to figure out where <a href="https://twitter.com/AngelGarzaWwe?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AngelGarzaWwe</a> should stick his rose on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWERAW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WWERAW</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RAWTonight?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RAWTonight</a></p>&mdash; WWE Creative Humor (@WWECreative_ish) <a href="https://twitter.com/WWECreative_ish/status/1396901869126144004?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Guess Lashley decided to channel his inner Ric Flair again this week since he brought out more women to hang around him.