Raw, SmackDown takeaways: It’s a wild, wild, wild card

This week’s episodes of WWE Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live centered more around reviving sinking ratings than the build to Money in the Bank. Plus, Kofi Kingston proved he was a fighting champion and a tragedy befell the Firefly Fun House.

Vince McMahon “Wild Card” decree means Shake-Up continues forever

The WWE’s ratings on Monday and Tuesday nights have been on sharp decline, and it appears that the ongoing Superstar Shake-Up and its related moves is one strategy the company has employed to try to give the numbers a boost. This continued on Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live this week, as WWE President Vince McMahon announced a “Wild Card Rule” that will allow four Superstars from each main-roster brand to jump back and forth on a weekly basis.

There were problems with the plan almost immediately. First, McMahon announced that only three Superstars would be jumping back and forth, but the arrival of Lars Sullivan later in the night convinced him to increase it to four. Technically, though, six members of the SmackDown roster showed up on Raw — Roman Reigns, Kofi Kingston, Daniel Bryan, Sullivan, Shane McMahon and Elias. And five from Raw showed up on SmackDown — AJ Styles, Sami Zayn, The Usos (who are two people) and The Miz.

The other problem is that the ratings struggles don’t seem to be a product of who is featured on what show, but what the talent featured are actually doing. McMahon (and FOX, who will air SmackDown beginning in October, and NBCUniversal, who own USA Network, where Raw and SmackDown both currently air) apparently think star power is key to getting viewership to rise (according to Wrestling Observer Radio) and perhaps these little tweaks to WWE’s weekly programming will provide a boost. But the quality of the work is in decline, particularly on Monday nights, and until that gets adequately addressed, it’s hard to expect any of these quick fixes like the Wild Card Rule to make much of a difference.

Show your work

We noted above that the quality of WWE’s main roster programming is in decline. Here are a few examples of this from both Raw and SmackDown this week:

• Sami Zayn again came out to insult the fans on Raw, only this time he was accosted by Braun Strowman, chased around the arena and then ultimately thrown into a dumpster by Strowman. A garbage truck then promptly arrived, taking Zayn away. Zayn then showed up on SmackDown the next night to be told he still smells like garbage.
• The Women’s Division received only 10 minutes of television time over the course of five hours of programming, with one match (Lacey Evans vs. “local talent”) on Raw and one (Ember Moon and Carmella vs. Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville) on SmackDown. Raw also featured an Evans-Becky Lynch confrontation and Evans sending peach cobbler-scented invitations to Naomi, Alexa Bliss, Dana Brooke and Natalya to watch her brief match.
• The humiliation of The Revival continued, this time by their gear being covered with “Usey Hot” (or Ucey? Or Ucy? Usy?) courtesy of The Usos. What is Usey Hot? Apparently, it’s just like Icy Hot, except that it heats when it contacts either sweat or water. Anyway, the WWE continues to punish The Revival for not taking a contract extension and, in turn, is making The Usos look like fools by extension.

• A pointless stipulation that Ricochet would lose his Money in the Bank Ladder Match spot if he lost to Robert “Bobby” Roode, but he didn’t, so he didn’t.
• Promo parades to open both shows.

There is some good news to report, however: Not everything felt as hopeless as the previous week.

Perfectly cromulent in-ring action

On Raw, Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre had a WrestleMania 35 rematch by decree of (Vince) McMahon, and it far exceeded the performance the two put on at MetLife Stadium a month prior. The only downside is that it went without a winner, with Shane McMahon stepping in to beat down Reigns, The Miz making the save and running down McMahon only to leave Reigns in the ring to take punishment from both McIntyre and Elias.

The match between The Usos and Daniel Bryan and Rowan for the vacant SmackDown Tag Team Championship was also good, with very vocal interest from the crowd. Also points to Shane McMahon for not simply naming himself and Elias the SmackDown tag champs, and to also agreeing that Bryan and Rowan should indeed face The Usos rather than just being named the new titleholders, though that was McMahon’s initial plan.

Kofi two-defenses

The other major in-ring highlight of the week featured WWE Champion Kofi Kingston in back-to-back title defenses. First, Vince McMahon called for a WrestleMania rematch between Kingston and former champion Daniel Bryan (in his first appearance since WrestleMania) on Raw and then Kingston insisted his way into a triple threat match against Sami Zayn and AJ Styles, also with his belt on the line.

Both were compelling matches befitting the stakes, and had the added tension of knowing that McMahon re-books shows on a moment’s notice and that a surprise Kingston title loss seemed very much in the realm of possibility. Kingston took a number of serious-looking bumps in his match against Bryan and then lasted around 30 minutes in the triple threat the following night.

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1125594949548777472

Kingston won clean in both matches, as well, taking out both Bryan and Zayn with Trouble in Paradise. The latter victory, though, was even more tense than Monday’s, with Kingston taking three of Zayn’s Blue Thunder Bombs in a row, kicking out of each, before successfully hitting his finisher and getting the pin on Zayn.

Kingston is a fighting champion. That’s clearly the message being sent by the back-to-back title defenses. And it’s also clear that McMahon, despite his track record with champions of color and his propensity to change his mind swiftly and unpredictably, is in no hurry to move on from Kingston being WWE Champion. The fans are still firmly in his corner, his defenses this week were the in-ring highlights of both Raw and SmackDown and the two wins coming cleanly establish that Kingston is championship material and not a “fluke,” as Bryan insisted to open Raw.

RIP Rambling Rabbit

Bray Wyatt’s “Firefly Fun House” returned this week and the already-dark show took a turn toward the macabre, with Mercy the Buzzard eating (and thus, killing) Rambling Rabbit for “trying to force me to adhere to his bohemian worldview.”

The three-minute episode also further established the tension between Mercy and Abby the Witch, taught us a lesson about forgiveness (and reminded us of Wyatt’s villainous past) and established that, at least sometimes, there are actually children hanging out at the Fun House. Creepy children. Expressionless children. Perhaps, trapped children? At least they enjoyed a little picnic this week.

So, let’s all pour one out for Rambling Rabbit, whom we hardly knew. Though, based on Wyatt’s tweet on Monday night, that may not be the last we’ve seen of the stuffed little rodent.

Yowie wowie, indeed.

What’s next?

Next week’s Raw and SmackDown are both pre-taped and come from the O2 Arena in London, England as part of the company’s traditional post-WrestleMania tour of Europe. Those will also serve as the go-home shows ahead of the May 19 Money in the Bank pay-per-view. With 10 matches confirmed for Money in the Bank, Raw and SmackDown should be more focused on building up the existing feuds than trying to create any new matchups.

Beyond that, expect another “Firefly Fun House” vignette, more humiliation of The Revival, a fairly engaged London crowd that will nonetheless see its reactions tempered by WWE’s post-production efforts and an indeterminate amount of Superstars Wild Card Rule-ing it up.