Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Raw, recaps, wrestling, wwe

Alexa Bliss Returns on Another Not So Bad Episode of WWE Raw

WWE's mission to rise ever-so-slightly above mediocrity continues to find success as another not-so-bad episode of WWE Raw aired on Monday. Featuring the fallout from the WrestleMania Backlash PPV, Raw avoided most of its worst tendencies and even delivered a nice surprise or two.

WWE Raw: The Pretty Good Stuff

The most notable event of the night was the return of Alexa Bliss, merging her past gimmicks together into a streamlined merchandise-moving machine (she kept the Lily doll). Bliss returned as a surprise opponent for Sonya Deville, who was also fired from her role as authority figure before being squashed by Bliss.

Defying rational explanation, RKBro continue to be the most entertaining thing on WWE Raw, and this week they regained some heat from their loss at Backlash by successfully defending their tag team championships against the Street Profits. But more notable was the pre-match promo, which saw Riddle rip off RVD and tell the Profits "RKBro 420 says we just smoked your ass." Hopefully, he at least sent RVD some brownies as compensation. Watch Ryan Satin mark out over this like he was getting paid for it:

Oh, wait. He does get paid for it. Anyway, here are the highlights:

Also highly entertaining despite being incredibly stupid on WWE Raw this week is the Ezekiel angle. This week, Kevin Owens tried to give Ezekiel a taste of his own medicine by putting on a gray wig and pretending to be his own older brother, Ken Owens. When that didn't work, he and Alpha Academy just jumped Ezekiel.

Another highlight of WWE Raw lately is Edge's new stable. Yes, it's clearly "inspired" by the House of Black in AEW, but old heads will recall that sort of thing happened all the time back in the day, sometimes to great effect. Degeneration X, after all, was WWE's answer to the NWO, and look how that worked out? Pairing the Taylor Swift snake phase version of Edge with young stars like Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley (and they are still recruiting) is such a simple yet effective idea, it's hard to believe WWE hasn't totally screwed it up yet. Ripley beat Liv Morgan in a match on Raw last night, and a match between Priest and Finn Balor ended in DQ before Balor and AJ Styles got a beatdown.

Cody Rhodes challenged Theory for the United States Championship, but exactly as we predicted when WWE announced the match, it ended in disqualification when Seth Rollins attacked Rhodes to cost him the win. Expect this feud to end at Hell in a Cell.

And in the last major highlight of WWE Raw last night, Asuka vs. Bianca Belair ended in (you guessed it) disqualification when Becky Lynch took out Belair and then assaulted Asuka. Asuka's recent return was a huge help for the WWE Women's division, which has suffered a bit by the absence of several major stars. With Alexa Bliss back as well now, all we need is Bayley and things can really kick into high gear. In the meantime, perhaps a triple thread for Hell in a Cell?

WWE Raw: The Pretty Bad Stuff

Of course, it wouldn't be WWE Raw without some misses, though these are far more forgivable when other parts of the show are actually entertaining. Human ninja turtle Bobby Lashley invaded the VIP Lounge to set up a cage match for next week. We can hope that will be the end of the feud, but it will probably carry on until at least the PPV.

Doudrop yelled at Nikki Cross like an angry Scrooge McDuck after the pair failed to defeat Women's Tag Team Champions Sasha Banks and Naomi. I'm not normally a fan of dropped storylines, but if Cross came out next week and acted like the whole superhero thing never happened, I wouldn't say a word about it.

The only bright spot of the latest Veer Mahaan squash match was how over jobber Frank Lowman was with the Hartford crowd. It's not clear if it was due to his James Ellsworth-like pre-match interview, or the fact that his existence is clearly a rib on AEW star Wardlow, but they should hire off-brand Wardlow and send Mahaan back to developmental for a repackaging.

As for Mustafa Ali, he should have just stayed home for the remainder of his contract if this convoluted 4-way feud with Ciampa, Miz, and Theory is any indication of what WWE has for him creatively. But at least they tried, we guess.

And then there's this. The less said about this, the better.

But the worst thing about WWE Raw this week was the latest Lacey Evans promo. Apparently, Evans is coming to Raw, and for some bizarre reason, WWE is promoting Evans's real-life story of overcoming adversity… to make her a heel? Not even WWE can get behind that one, which is why they didn't even post a video clip to YouTube or Twitter.

Despite that, all in all, it was an above-average episode of WWE Raw, continuing the streak of better-than-usual episodes. How long can WWE keep this up? Who knows. Enjoy it while it lasts, people.

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