WWE Raw Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for May 1

Raw, Source: WWE.com

Raw this week dealt with all of the fallout from WWE Payback 24 hours earlier. How do Monday nights shape up after everything that happened?

Previously on WWE Raw, Braun Strowman took out the trash as we finished the build to Payback. Then Payback happened, and here we are. Spoiler alert: If you’re watching Raw for Chris Jericho, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

The fallout from Payback permeated this week’s episode of Raw from Sacramento. Even what happened on the Kickoff Show spilled over into tonight, as Enzo Amore took on Luke Gallows.

The Hardy Boyz successfully defended their Tag Team Titles at Payback against Cesaro and Sheamus. However, keeping their titles didn’t mean they didn’t lose anything, as Sheamus kicked a tooth out of Jeff’s mouth. After the match, the challengers went ballistic and Pearl Harbored the champs. Tonight, Cesaro and Sheamus explained their actions. Why, guys?

We also got updates as to the health of Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns. Both men – but especially Roman – took a ton of punishment at Payback, and both looked to be in bad shape when Raw Talk got started. What is the status of each of these competitors?

This week’s episode kicked off with the entire Women’s Division in the ring. After Payback, Alexa Bliss is the new Raw Women’s Champion. With every one of her potential challengers in the ring – as well as the former champ, Bayley – what message did Alexa have for the division?

Must Read: WWE Payback 2017 Review

Please continue reading for all the highlights from WWE Raw for May 1.

State of the Women’s Division

Man, Alexa Bliss is so so so good.

So many of the other women competitors in WWE – if not all of them – are seemingly incapable of deviating from a scripted promo. They all follow what was written for them verbatim, and can’t ad lib to respond to crowd reactions.

But not little Miss Bliss. Alexa can read a crowd better than 90% of the roster, male or female. Her ad-libs and improvisations sound more natural than the stilted dialogue of, say, Sasha Banks.

The kind of Women’s Division round table segment that kicked off tonight’s Raw was laid out perfectly. Even better, it didn’t feel like it went on for too long. My biggest complaint? Here’s literally the entire Women’s Division in the ring to kick off Raw, which means – aside from the inevitable atomicos match coming up – this is all we’ll get from the women tonight.

If that’s the case, it’s an A+ way to build the division. Clear battle lines are drawn – Bliss picks on all the faces (except Dana Brooke because LOL) to set up possible matches. And even Bayley gets some sadly needed character development. Normally, I’d think Bayley taking the first shot was the most anti-Bayley thing possible. But anyone who’s gone through a public school education knows: if you needle the quiet, goody-two-shoes kid long enough, they’re gonna explode. It’s how they put up defenses to avoid bullying – show they’ll stand up for themselves. Here, it works perfectly.

And of course, it sets up a match, because Kurt Angle went to the Theodore R. Long School of Pro Wrestling General Managers.

Bayley, Sasha Banks, Mickie James, & Dana Brooke vs. Alexa Bliss, Emma, Nia Jax, & Alicia Fox

Result: Alexa Bliss, Emma, Nia Jax, & Alicia Fox defeated Bayley, Sasha Banks, Mickie James, & Dana Brooke via pinfall

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The match was literally a tale of two segments. Before the mid-match commercial, it was a babyface extravaganza. Everyone got some good work in, even Dana Broke. It was the best she’s looked on the main roster in a long time, if not ever. The incorporation of a more gymnastic style of offense is a great idea, because Dana’s big hook is her athleticism.

But as soon as Alicia Fox threw Sasha to the outside and Raw rolled on, the heels took over. It was a shame that most of Nia’s time in the ring happened during the commercial break, but I get it – probably hoping she didn’t almost kill anyone again, like Charlotte a few weeks back.

I love the way Alexa Bliss is the smartest coward right now – she refuses to enter the ring against a fresh Bayley to start the match, but once things are squarely in her team’s favor here she comes to take on Sasha.

But it was the finish that really shines a light on how good Alexa is. It comes down to Alexa and Bayley – as it should – when everyone else ends up outside the ring. Bayley is rolling, but Alexa shows that she studied her Austin Aries tapes with a thumb to the eye. A vicious DDT later – hello, callback to Payback – and Bliss proves she’s no fluke.

Great things from the entire division tonight, with more likely on the horizon.

Enzo Amore (w/ Big Cass) vs. Luke Gallows (w/ Karl Anderson)

Result: Luke Gallows defeated Enzo Amore via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Ok, this match wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great, either, but it wasn’t bad. However, it suffers from the same old, three hours long Raw problem – it’s pointless.

Seriously, what was the point of this? Gallows and Anderson have been booked so terribly they have no heat to even get back. But here’s The Club orchestrating a sneak attack on Enzo and Cass before the match. Then Gallows picks up a singles victory over Enzo, because we have to maintain the illusion that The Club are some big bad team.

The worst part is that Gallows – the larger man on his team – beat Enzo – the smaller man on his team – relatively cleanly. Anderson tried to interfere, sure, but aside from a distraction he didn’t do anything during the match. This was basically a straight up match, and the big bad guy beat the scrappy little guy.

Eventually, something’s gotta give. Raw needs some fresh tag teams, because besides these two teams, the Hardys, and Sheasaro, it’s The Golden Truth and Slater & Rhyno. Woof.

The King and His Squire

When did Neville turn into a wise old man? He’s like the guy in a movie who tells the team to keep their eye on the prize, or something ridiculous like that.

Kudos to TJ Perkins for his nonverbal acting skills. Eyes like that usually follow an “AROOGA” sound as a cartoon wolf’s heart beats out of its chest.

Who Wants To Be Champion Of The Universe?

The Seth Rollins promo formula is simple. Give him five minutes worth of material, tell him to take ten minutes to deliver it all, and liberally sprinkle in “man” and “dude” when it feels appropriate.

More from Daily DDT

• It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles
• Tom Lawlor talks MLW return, AEW opportunity, CM Punk’s WWE return and more
• Eddie Kingston stands to gain the most from the AEW Continental Classic
• Trish Stratus on WWE NXT would help elevate that women’s division
• Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline

Tonight’s was on the shorter side of the Rollins scale, but to parse it down, he basically said he read The Secret and he wants to be champion. Okay, there we go. Let’s work this out.

Rollins wants to (finally) win the Universal Championship. There’s two problems with this, though: Brock Lesnar is MIA with the championship, and Finn Balor literally said last night that he wants his title back.

Hearing word of championship dreams on Raw, Dean Ambrose trots out with the Intercontinental Title. After a quality Lesnar burn, Ambrose offers to be a fighting champion for Team Red. This brings out The Miz to save the segment, as is his forte of late.

I will admit, Dean Ambrose calling Kurt Angle in the middle of the ring was pretty funny. I’m convinced that Ambrose really is a lunatic, and none of the things he does are vastly out of character. Strange for a death match guy, but whatever. (I also want to hear the phone call where Angle screams at Mick Foley for giving Dean his number.)

All this leads to the obvious conclusion when these four guys shared a ring: A triple threat, number one contender’s match for the Intercontinental Title.

Tony Nese, The Brian Kendrick, & Noam Dar vs. Rich Swann, Akira Tozawa, & Gentleman Jack Gallagher

Result: Rich Swann, Akira Tozawa, & Gentleman Jack Gallagher defeated Tony Nese, The Brian Kendrick, & Noam Dar via pinfall

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Hey, there are other Cruiserweights besides Aries and Neville? Who knew?

WWE is the weirdest company sometimes. They go out and sign all of these guys to deals, then leave them on the sidelines. Or they get relegated to house shows, or Main Event only. I get needing matches for Main Event, but if you don’t care about it enough to air it on a real network (or the WWE Network), who’s going to pay attention to the superstars who only show up there?

Take Rich Swann. This was his first appearance on Raw since March 6. That’s just about two months! Yeah, that was mainly because of WrestleMania build, but what about the month since then? Getting this division over can only happen if they’re given opportunities to perform in front of the larger audience.

Anyway, this is a pretty good six-man match. Nothing super fancy, but by definition trios matches are usually better than average. I still think the cruiserweight matches should have more of a distinct style than the official Raw roster. If everyone does suicide dives and fast-paced, high-flying offense, what’s left for the 205 Live crew?

Just want to point out how good Kendrick is – he adjusted to go for the Sliced Bread #2 on the ropes as opposed to the turnbuckles just to set up a blind tag off the reversal. He’s such a good influence on the division.

Cesaro & Sheamus Spit Fire

What a great first segment for a heel Sheasaro, someone lessened by bad diction. I can forgive it because of the accents, but Sheamus especially sounded like Eliza Doolittle butchering the Queen’s English.

Pronunciation aside, it was a perfect way to establish these two as the big bads of the tag team division. The logic was perfect – which can be a little strange for heels, but is the WWE norm. I love that Sheamus is the one who went along with Cesaro because he thought the crowd would help propel them. And even better is Sheamus getting to pull out an “I told ya so” to his partner before they beat the snot out of Matt and Jeff.

Kudos go to Cesaro, who seems to really be digging getting the chance to play a bad guy again. He showed great emotion during his promo. And I’m assuming the “you pay attention to the past and the future, ignoring the present in front of you” wasn’t an ad lib, because as much as I like Cesaro I don’t think he’d come up with a double meaning like that on the fly.

Then the Hardys emerged, sadly still not quite Broken. (get those lawyers to work, Vince!) Unable to get physical retribution, it seems this story will continue.

The Miz Backstage

Please let Dean and Miz interact forever. They’re a modern age Heenan and Monsoon, and play off each other amazingly well.

Heath Slater (w/ Rhyno) vs. Apollo Crews (w/ Titus O’Neil)

Result: Apollo Crews defeated Heath Slater via pinfall

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

Since the Superstar Shake-Up, it seems that on Raw that whoever came over from SmackDown Live has ended up feuding with each other. First Miz and Ambrose, now Slater and Crews are in this loop while being separated from everything else happening. (Except for the women Superstars who came over, which is odd.)

The union between Titus and Apollo is one that I figured would end fairly quickly, but it looks like we’re in it for the long haul. It reminds me a little of the Goldust and R-Truth story from a few years back, where Goldie needed a tag partner and R-Truth kept refusing. Hopefully, the blowup between Crews and Titus will happen a little faster than the six months it took for the Golden Truth to get together.

There were stretches here where the technical side of things was crisp and clean, just super basic. Overshadowing it all was the complete and utter lack of a crowd response. The crowd was on and off lousy all night, but especially here they were dead. Like, Crews kipped up and was greeted with deafening silence. Horrible, horrible stuff.

With any luck, someone in creative will figure out how to present Crews to get a more positive response. Or rather, any response.

Kurt Angle Gets An Unexpected Guest

I think Kurt Angle is as good a general manager as he was a wrestler. Whether it’s who’s writing for him, or just his affable personality, he comes across as super competent and logical – two qualities not often associated with “pro wrestling authority figure.”

Take the start of this segment as an example. When was the last time a GM mentioned “WWE officials” he was in contact with? Usually, the response is “I’M THE GENERAL MANAGER/COMMISSIONER/CHAIRMAN, SO MY WORD IS FINAL.” But here’s Kurt treating WWE like it’s a publicly traded company with a hierarchy of power or something.

I would also like to bottle up Kurt’s response to Bray Wyatt’s entrance and aura. Just save it for a lousy day, and take a bit out every time I’m down in the dumps because that was glorious.

The whole Wyatt-Angle relationship here is intriguing. Bray is a master at crafting a promo and delivering it with style, eloquence, and emotion. It seems like he’s offering Angle a simple proposition, but there’s more layers to it. Angle is smart enough to see right through it, so we’re at an impasse.

If Bray Wyatt only spoke and never wrestled, he’d be the greatest character produced by WWE. But his booking always leaves him looking like a goof, so he flounders. He’s still young, so it can turn around, but it doesn’t seem likely.

Ambrose Interviews Rollins

Yes, Dean, it would be weird if there were cameras in the locker room without an interview happening. Please don’t do that.

Also, it’s great to see these two potentially fighting again, and seeing Dean flip the switch from lunatic to serious back to lunatic is even better.

Source: WWE.com

Austin Aries vs. TJ Perkins

Result: Austin Aries defeated TJ Perkins via submission

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Somehow, this match was simultaneously exciting and dull as dishwater. How is that possible?

I think it’s too much cookie-cutter booking here that makes it seem boring. Aries has devolved into a too much of a signature spot monkey. And Perkins is kind of the same way. In fairness to both guys, it’s the way of the business nowadays, I guess. But when you can kind of figure out what’s going on before it happens, the match is less exciting.

However, there was enough variety to keep things entertaining and exciting. The half crab on the turnbuckles was a nice touch by Perkins. Something you don’t see every day is a nice thing to add – but only every once in a while, otherwise they become signature spots, too.

The finishing sequence was beautiful, with Aries reversing the Detonation Kick into the Last Chancery. And the post-match assault adds another layer to TJP’s relationship with Neville, who watched the whole thing.

Ambrose Asking The Hard-Hitting Questions

If eating nerves and producing results gave someone abs like Finn Balor, I’d be eating a double helping of steely nerves every day. Donuts, too, obviously.

And is it any surprise that Ambrose is a Drifter fan?

Golden Truth Get a Shot

Looking at a win-loss record before blindly giving someone exactly what they want? Kurt Angle is the greatest general manager of all time!

It’s a little too “break the fourth wall” when Goldust talks about being a joke in the fans’ eyes. But logically, this was exactly how Angle should have handled this. Golden Truth are not contenders – right now. But there’s nothing that says they can’t work their way towards it. Angle gives them a shot to do so, and next week is a Tag Team Turmoil match.

Source: WWE.com via Twitter

Finn Balor vs. The Miz (w/ Maryse) vs. Seth Rollins

Result: The Miz defeated Finn Balor and Seth Rollins via pinfall

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

What a match!

The great thing about this is the three greatly different styles in the ring at once. Well, greatly different except for two guys always using the Sling Blade. Miz is a homegrown WWE guy, so he is solid without being flashy. Rollins is the ROH/American indies guy. And Balor is a NJPW alum.

More from Daily DDT

• It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles
• Tom Lawlor talks MLW return, AEW opportunity, CM Punk’s WWE return and more
• Eddie Kingston stands to gain the most from the AEW Continental Classic
• Trish Stratus on WWE NXT would help elevate that women’s division
• Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline

Sure, the match got a bit sloppy at times. I still haven’t figured out what happened with Rollins and Balor on the springboard splash. But Balor took a thigh to the skull and Rollins landed hard, and I had visions of extended time out for one or both again.

I feel like a lot of people are griping about getting Ambrose vs. Miz again. Here’s the thing: Rollins/Joe absolutely was not over after Payback. There was enough presented to end it if that was the direction they wanted to go, but there’s more there. Also, Balor/Wyatt was teased weeks ago. Of course, that was what we’d get.

Finally, in a triple threat match where the winner gets to fight a babyface champ, and two guys in the match are also babyfaces, don’t you think the bad guy will come out on top? It was basically pre-ordained.

But solid interference from Samoa Joe and Bray Wyatt not only gives the victory to Miz, but sets up two other big matches. Extreme Rules is already shaping up nicely despite being several weeks away. Strowman/Reigns, Rollins/Joe, Miz/Ambrose, Wyatt/Balor – that’s already pretty stacked.

Next: WWE Payback 2017: Best and Worst Moments

What did you think about this week’s episode of WWE Raw?