WWE Raw: Results, Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for April 23

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Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens vs. Bobby Lashley & Braun Strowman

Result: Bobby Lashley & Braun Strowman defeated Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens via pinfall

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

I’m a little disappointed that the much-hyped Samoa Joe promo to address Roman Reigns and Backlash was a 30-second cell phone selfie thing. It was great, but come on — let the man speak.

Then Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel put the full court press on Finn Balor, even donning “OG BC” shirts. Personally, I just think they thought BC stood for Bo and Curtis. Finn shuts them down, and they go back to the drawing board (which I hope involves joining the Fashion Police).

Anyway, onto the tag match, and it’s exactly what you would expect. The heels run away until Braun outsmarts them (or maybe it was Brains?) and it’s a whooping. There was no finesse in this match whatsoever, and it was wonderful.

Seriously, this was four guys just throwing hands for like twelve minutes. Lashley looked phenomenal in his first real action since returning to WWE. Check out the belly to belly suplex where he launched Sami halfway across the ring, it’s great.

But the star of the match is Braun off the hot tag. Good god, this man is a star and a half. There isn’t a single person in the crowd who isn’t all over everything Braun does. Based solely on the events of tonight’s episode of WWE Raw, I want to see Braun Strowman vs. Drew McIntyre like, yesterday. How great would that be?

Time for details, though: did you catch Zayn holding his head while Braun had him up for the powerslam? He was upside down in Lashley’s stalling suplex for a while, so why wouldn’t he be grabbing at his head? Just small things like that can make a huge difference in storytelling.