2 things that went wrong on the May 23 episode of WWE Raw

This past Monday’s episode of WWE Raw broadcasted from the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. When the company wasn’t busy smearing Sasha Banks and Naomi, it presented a seven-match card that helped further shape the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view.

Given that this was an episode of Raw, it won’t surprise you to hear (or read, in this case) that only two of these matches ended with a definitive finish, but the lackluster conclusions weren’t the only contributing factors to making this show a tough watch this week.

These are two things that went wrong on the May 23 episode of WWE Raw.

More heat on The Judgement Day

When listening to the latest “rip on the fans” promo by The Judgement Day — who have now expanded their material to offering uninspiring invitations to join their group — it finally became clear who they remind me of.

They’re basically a (somehow) worse version of the pre-Brodie Lee Dark Order!

At least with Dark Order, AEW quickly realized its mistake and leaned into the inherent dorkiness of the group (first as geek lackeys for Lee to push around and do his bidding, now as lovable loser babyfaces). With Judgement Day, it, unfortunately, looks like Edge will continue to deposit more effort into this sunk cost of a group in an attempt to enrich his already-well-off legacy.

After another long, wordy promo segment from Edge, Rhea Ripley, and Damian Priest, we saw a solid mixed tag match between Ripley, Priest, A.J. Styles, and Liv Morgan. Of course, the heels won after Edge grabbed onto Ripley’s belt to prevent her from taking Morgan’s ObLIVion finisher and Ripley stacked up Morgan with a matchbook pin cover. Oh, and Judgement Day beat up Styles and Morgan after the match because winning wasn’t enough to put HEEEEAAAT on the heels, apparently.

We all understand that segments like these are needed to establish Judgement Day as a legitimate threat, but when they’re beating up the same babyfaces every week, it just makes the faces look dumb for taking on the same fights and getting laid out over and over. At some point, the protagonists need to get the upper hand.

MVP beats Bobby Lashley by countout, picks a handicap match for Hell in a Cell

In what is a glaring indictment of how unimportant the cage match stipulation is in WWE, Bobby Lashley and Omos will battle once more at Hell in a Cell. Because WWE likely didn’t want to follow up a cage match between these two with a third standard wrestling match — and because the last two Lashley/Omos matches haven’t exactly resembled technical masterpieces — we saw Lashley take on Montel Vontavious Porter for the right to pick the stipulation for Lashley/Omos at the PPV.

This brought WWE to a familiar conundrum; it wanted MVP to win but didn’t want Lashley to get pinned by someone who’s essentially a non-wrestler. Consequently, it went with what it always goes with: A countout finish.

To be fair, having Lashley lose because he was too preoccupied with Omos is a solid set-up for the handicap match MVP picked for Hell in a Cell. Plus, that match does allow for a blowoff that gives Lashley a more polished wrestler to work with. But WWE’s over-reliance on these finishes and tropes to get out of picking winners and losers makes this feel like another cop-out booking decision rather than shrewd creativity.