WWE Raw – June 18, 2019 (Review)

The Worst of Raw

The ‘Chair’man of Raw

To boost intrigue of the rematch between Seth Rollins and Baron Corbin over the Universal title, RAW’s overall narrative this episode revolved around answering one simple question: who will be the special guest referee for their match at Stomping Grounds. Many names were teased, including Elias, EC3, and Eric Young. Yet, all met the same fate: a relentless rain of chair shots by Seth Rollins.

When Corbin was interviewed backstage about this matter, he ate a chair shot by Rollins. Yet, Corbin looked fine during the backstage segment prior to his interview at the Kevin and Sami Show. Then, he remembered he was in pain during the in ring interview, only to be interrupted by both Rollins and the New Day.

At this point, the brand split has to be dead, because the number of Smackdown wrestlers in today’s episode of Raw was certainly more than four, not that anyone was counting. Also, in the obvious six-man tag match coming up after this segment, Corbin ate the pin after knocking out his teammate. And WWE wonders why the audience is not invested in Corbin or his rivalry with Rollins.

Even though Corbin attacked Rollins at the end of his match with his own chair and stood tall to close Raw, he never revealed who the special guest referee will be. More likely that not, it will not be revealed until this Sunday. By that point, who would care about who this guest referee is?

Overstayed Promos

It hurts that WWE expects the audience to indulge in repetitive scripts and storytelling. During Becky Lynch’s promo, she continued to spout the same summary over and over again. Lacy Evans did nothing to elevate the segment further. Although the segment ended in a quick beat down, it made Lynch look like a sore loser, proving Evan’s point.

Paul Heyman tried to fool the audience into believing that Brock Lesner was in the building. As great of a character Heyman is, he won’t be fooling anyone this time around. He may set intrigue that ‘The Beast’ could be the special guest referee, but the likelihood of that is minimal at best.

The Roman-Shane promo started off strong, with Roman cutting a quick promo and brawling with Shane’s lackeys. The action was solid, and Reigns finally got his revenge on Shane. However, the final execution felt off. Roman should not only send a message to McIntyre, but also to Shane. Until he can get the aftertaste of losing to Shane off of his mouth, Roman needs to continue these beatdowns and messages to Shane. Otherwise, he will be following the footsteps of the Shane-Miz saga, and we all know how that turned out for The Miz.

Viking Raiders Blunder

It appears everyone forgot the fact that Erik and Ivar destroyed the former Raw Tag Team Champions, Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder, last month. It was great to see them back in action again in a squash match. However, the Viking Raiders should be in the title picture, or, at least, feuding with another prominent team.

It does not help that their match was only a precursor to another 24/7 title chase. It revealed clearly that WWE has yet to know what to do with this talented team.

That Hulk Hogan Segment

The crowd voiced their mixed response loudly when Hogan appeared on the titan tron. WWE is still trying to ease Hogan back into the mainstream audience. However, many will never forgive him for the things that he did.

Iiconic Letdown

It was nice to see Peyton Royce and Billie Kaye in action and defending their titles. It was not okay that this was more of a segment than it was a match. The clear focus was on the rivalry between Alexa Bliss and Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley. The title match was an afterthought, a means to fuel the fire for their story. The match was fine, but more people will continue to talk about the odd pairing of Bliss and Nikki Cross than the match itself.

• RAW
• baron corbin
• Seth Rollins
• wwe

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