Sometimes in life you get a little bit ahead of yourself, and that's the kindest way to describe the "go-home" edition of Monday Night Raw leading into Payback.
With three hours to fill, it seemed as if every tangible and consequential point had already been made a week ago; the matches were set, the momentum for each conflict was nearing its peak, and the anticipation for Sunday's Payback pay-per-view was as high as it was going to get. But instead of three weeks of post-WrestleMania build to the event, it was as if there was some shock and surprise that there were indeed four weeks.
Blame the chaos and tough timing of the "superstar shakeup," but there's little use denying that the final edition of Raw prior to Payback did little to help the upcoming pay-per-view, and ultimately revealed a few too many of the warts that are currently plaguing the show.
The biggest problem of all? It's the inconsistency of the title picture and all the rules that surround it, especially with the Universal and WWE championships. There are pitfalls that go along with putting the top title on a part-time performer like Brock Lesnar, but they can be alleviated by having a certain level of competition for who will be the one to stand up and face the champ upon their return. In this case, the chosen one is, well, the chosen one, as Paul Heyman called out the only person other than Lesnar to defeat The Undertaker at WrestleMania as the next target for Lesnar, before the pair completely ghosted from Raw without explanation.
With all of the potential loose ends and title rematches owed, it's particularly poor timing. Goldberg essentially retired, so that's somewhat understandable; Kevin Owens' delayed rematch isn't going to happen because he won the United States championship and then moved to SmackDown; and Finn Balor's one-day title run nearly a year ago that ended without a loss is ancient history. But add those three sets of loose ends together, along with a polarizing (at best) top contender in Roman Reigns, and you have a real mess on your hands.
That's before you dig into the mess surrounding the WWE championship. Without mention or rationalization, other than the unspoken consequences of Bray Wyatt's move to Raw, the "House of Horrors" match set for Sunday suddenly became a non-title affair. With a character such as Wyatt's, it would have been an easy fix to patch over the change, like, "I have tasted your gold, and it is of no interest to me. I have no need for material things -- I simply seek revenge for all of your misdeeds." There, quick and dirty. All set, and we can move on without making Wyatt's motivations seem so consistently inconsistent (although the close of Raw once again beat that all to hell). Add in AJ Styles never getting his one-on-one rematch and the shocking No. 1 contendership of Jinder Mahal, and now you have both of the top titles surrounded by chaos and confusion.
In the end, because of the creative nature of the shows, the rules about the titles are inherently supposed to be malleable to suit whatever has to happen in the moment. But doing things like forcing Naomi to forfeit the SmackDown women's championship due to her inability to defend it in 30 days (rather than just saying she's hurt and not putting a timetable on it all), and then turning around in a short window and having your Universal champion disappear for what could be months at a time without having to answer to similar rules is silly.
Keep it simple, and keep it consistent. That's the moral of this story. There's every reason to believe Sunday's pay-per-view will be a fun show, and that things will settle down in a hurry on Raw and SmackDown once (some) of the loose ends are tied up. But on this particular Monday night, Raw got bogged down in a lot of its baggage, and it should serve as a cautionary tale for the future -- face issues head-on, don't get caught being too convoluted and stop assuming the attention span and memories of fans only last about one commercial break.
Jericho, Ambrose a notable highlight
One of the few bright spots of the night featured Chris Jericho and Dean Ambrose addressing their past history, and to great comedic effect. One of the final stops on what's almost certainly Jericho's farewell tour with the WWE for the foreseeable future allowed him to get to a lot of his greatest hits both inside and outside of the ring. The opening segment, which transformed from the Highlight Reel to Miz TV to the Ambrose Asylum highlighted some of the absurdities of the talk show segments. It allowed Jericho to play off of both Ambrose and Miz, laid more groundwork towards Miz and Ambrose's re-emerging Intercontinental title conflict, and kept things pretty light to open the show.
But it also set up a main event that was rife with problems of its own. There are only rare instances where having a bad guy on the wrong end of a 2-on-1 handicap match makes sense, and Miz hasn't had enough of a chance to establish himself on Raw to deserve it. All the "secret tag team partner" gimmick brought was a moment of excitement, a brief moment for Miz to shine as he tried to weasel his way out of the match and then 10 minutes of inconsistent brawling against Ambrose and Jericho.
That it ended ambiguously with Wyatt appearing after the match was already over was all the more confusing. Sure, having Wyatt beat up an old rival in Ambrose, take out Jericho and then sweep Miz's legs out from underneath after he got too cozy served as a final reminder of Wyatt's stature ahead of the still unknown "House of Horrors" match, but the timing of everything was just ... off.
Hits and misses
Braun Strowman's tour of utter destruction continued, and although the backdrop of a "dumpster match" and an opponent in Kalisto that hasn't been firing all cylinders of late didn't seem to look too great on paper, the match itself was actually quite fun. Kalisto held his own for far longer than anyone could have imagined, and actually shocked Strowman by picking up the victory in knocking the giant off the apron and into the dumpster. But the result of this match faded from memory about as quickly as it took for Strowman to collect himself and chokeslam Kalisto repeatedly into oblivion.
Regardless of the official result, we still got what we all expected -- Kalisto deposited in a dumpster for the second straight week, and a plunge off the stage that left a little something to be desired.
NOOOOOOO! @BraunStrowman sends @KalistoWWE tumbling off the #Raw stage INSIDE the dumpster! pic.twitter.com/11wOEjrQon
- WWE (@WWE) April 25, 2017
It was strange to see Kalisto debut a new look and music, both drastic improvements, when he's likely to be out for at least a few weeks after getting carted out on a stretcher. Wouldn't those changes make more sense if rolled out upon his return? But back to the point at hand -- Strowman, for the third straight week, was the destroyer of all things. Will it all be for naught as he falls at the hands of Roman Reigns on Sunday? Only time will tell.
Speaking of Reigns, the pair of pre-packaged promos we got for him certainly built him up as the conquering hero-to-be. The statement addressing the death of Reigns' brother Rosey (Matt Anoa'i) to explain part of his absence was a nice touch in theory, but referencing his very real pain of the loss and the imaginary storyline conflict with Strowman in the same sentence is as uneasy as it sounds.
It wasn't a banner week for the Raw women's division, with a pair of matches that lasted less than five minutes total, but Alexa Bliss continued to shine on the microphone. She's the perfect addition to the simmering Bayley-Sasha Banks situation, embodying "Mean Girls" villain Regina George while holding the crowd in the palm of her hand. The tease for a future, more in-depth rivalry with Banks before going old school and taking the countout loss to preserve herself for Sunday's Raw women's title match with Bayley was a nice touch, and running back out to get a few extra licks in on Bayley before running away again was the icing on the cake.
When you're in need of a friend, call Finn. After the team of Samoa Joe, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson bum-rushed Enzo & Cass before their partner Seth Rollins could save them, GM Kurt Angle added Balor to the bout to take on his former brethren in Gallows and Anderson. The match didn't accomplish much for the former Bullet Club brothers, and that's a situation worth addressing soon, but with Rollins' end of match revelation, it was ultimately a net positive.
Matt Hardy vs. Sheamus was a better match than it had any right to be, and the change in dynamic -- however brief -- that saw Sheamus as the cool, calm and collected teammate and Cesaro as the one flying off the handle, was a nice tease at what might be ahead for the No. 1 contenders to The Hardy Boyz's Raw tag team titles.
The Drifter continues to amble on through the background of Raw, and here's to hoping that continues for a long, long time.
Quote of the night
"Why would I take you off the list? You still owe me $15,000 from the light-up jacket that you destroyed... The Ambrose Asylum match, you powerbombed me into a pile of thumbtacks -- I had to pull 69 tacks out of my flesh, one, two, three ..." -- Chris Jericho
Backstory and history isn't something to be shunned -- it's an asset to be embraced. There's no need to purge the fact that Jericho and Ambrose had major conflict, and showing how they work their way through it allows us to more deeply understand their characters as they evolve. Taking Ambrose off the list because of his gift of a Christmas tree light suit jacket (along with the tentative opening of said gift as he recalled how the Festival of Friendship went down), only to add him right back, is the perfect kind of lasting memory of Jericho.
Move of the night
Despite its iffy execution, and origins that trace back to a couple of guys who had a certain six-star match earlier this year, Rollins' new finisher and symbolic shedding of the pedigree is a big moment. The ripcord knee strike might need some work, or he may want to experiment with some other moves, but the moment was well worth it.