Monday Night Raw Report Card - May 21, 2018
All eyes within the WWE were focused on the upcoming Money In The Bank pay per view on June 9th; however, a major bombshell dropped yesterday. As Sportskeeda reported, SmackDown Live is going to move to FOX starting in October 2019 in a deal reportedly worth $1 billion.
It was a major day for the WWE and their stock as it hit an all-time high. Now the focus shifts back into the ring as a major pay per view is on the horizon in just less than three weeks.
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This week's edition of Monday Night Raw saw a promo and corresponding match stretch the entire first hour, one of the worst segments in recent memory, a contract signing, a women's Money In The Bank qualifying match, and more.
For this article, I will grade five of those segments from this week's Raw on a letter scale of A+ being the best and F being the worst. Let's start with that first hour of Raw as I break down each part...
A seamless first hour involving a lot of people
For nearly the entire first hour of Monday Night Raw this week, it was one long segment that started out with Kurt Angle and Stephanie McMahon in the ring and ended in a tag team match. There are a few things to grade on the open of Raw this week.
First off the return of Stephanie McMahon to television since the Raw after Mania, when Ronda Rousey didn't buy Stephanie's goodwill and put her in another armbar. Just like she did last week, Stephanie undermined the General Manager decisions of Angle, namely surrounding Roman Reigns.
Reigns came out to answer those words in the ongoing saga of Roman versus The Authority. It seemed like they were copying the Daniel Bryan storyline, and this week it felt like Stone Cold Steve Austin. It seems they are trying things of the past to get the WWE Universe to cheer Roman, but that isn't the answer.
GRADE FOR THE OPENING TALKING SEGMENT: D+
Kevin Owens then came out to kiss the butts of Roman (for taking out Jinder Mahal) and Stephanie (for putting Owens in the Money In The Bank Qualifying Match). This eventually led to a one-on-one match between Reigns and Owens.
The match was decent, as one can expect from two great in-ring competitors like Owens and Reigns, but 13 minutes into the match, Jinder Mahal would interfere and attack Reigns in retaliation for Reigns taking him out of the qualifier match.
GRADE FOR SINGLES MATCH: B-
As Owens and Mahal were attacking Reigns, WWE Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins would come out, and predictably, a tag match started after the commercial break. The tag match lasted another 14 minutes with a great finish where Rollins misses his stomp finishers but turns around and lands it almost immediately on Owens for the win.
After the match, Jinder came out through the entrance and laid out both Rollins and Reigns with a steel chair. Overall this was a great tag match and some good action in the first hour of Raw.
GRADE FOR THE TAG MATCH: B+