Monday Night Raw from 5/10/2022

 Wrestlemania Backlash surprised a lot of people, myself included, by surpassing expectations. That must mean Raw was ready to cash in on that goodwill by delivering an exceptional three hours of entertainment, right? Well, I can tell you there were at least five good things:

1- Kevin Owens is a national treasure and his ability to turn a storyline as dumb as the Ezekiel / Elias one into something hilarious cannot be overstated.

2- Sonya Deville is back on the main roster because her desire to be Stephanie McMahon in the GM role led to her losing her executive powers

3- Alexa Bliss is back with new gear and an old friend.

4- Becky Lynch and Asuka had a terrific interaction backstage.

5- WWE brought interviews back to the edge of the stage, a spot frequently used back in the 90s.

And now that those are out of the way, let’s get on with the show!

We get rolling with a quick video on last night’s Bloodline win, and then RK-Bro head into the arena. Fans chant Randy’s name as he lets us know his team didn’t win yesterday, but that’s ok. Now RK-Bro wants the tag team titles combined, and they know Roman tore up the contract to that match because he has no faith in his family. RK-Bro will be going to Smackdown Friday to convince Roman to let the Usos fight for the unified tag titles. 

That brings the Street Profits. They have a championship match scheduled to open the show and it seems a little rude to just assume RK-Bro is going to beat them and move on. They get in each other’s faces and trade catchphrases, and we’re ready for some wrestling.

Opening Contest: Street Profits vs RK-Bro © for the Raw Tag Team Championship

We had a pretty short match, which is ok since we have seen this one about a hundred and twenty seven times. The story was Riddle missing an apron attack and accidently knocking Orton out of action for a bit. The Profits took advantage, nearly getting the pinfall on Riddle before Randy slid in for the last second save. Montez Ford went for a frog splash to finish, but Riddle was ready with the catch RKO and got the pin.

We then throw to Kevin Patrick conducting an interview with Theory on the corner of the entrance stage, a throwback to some great 90’s interviews. Theory is young, and therefore hates history and the past. He’ll be defending his United States Championship against Cody Rhodes at ten o'clock eastern. If you missed that, don’t worry, it will be restated roughly as many times as the Street Profits and RK-Bro have had matches.

A video recap of THE Judgment Day leads us to Edge making his entrance, flanked by Damien Priest and Rhea Ripley. Edge apparently recruited Rhea to steal her hairstyle. After Edge runs down the crowd a bit, and tells us they will destroy our favorite superstars, Priest gets to officially introduce Ripley to the stable, saying they have added brutality. Rhea was tired of being used. Edge lets us know he told Rhea to dump Liv Morgan, an “albatross in the shape of a human sized LOL doll”. Edge is letting us know that the recruitment drive for THE Judgment Day continues, when Liv Morgan’s theme hits and we’re on to…

Match #2: Liv Morgan vs Rhea Ripley

Rhea dominated the better part of this match, with only a small opening for Liv to get some offense in before being tossed around by Rhea. Ripley locks in a submission for the victory.

After the match, Edge nods to Rhea and she applies the submission hold again, and The Judgment Day mocks Liv while she screams. After Liv is legally dead, Finn Balor’s music plays. Not so much a save as just the next match starting. He does the Too Sweet gesture to the camera, and AJ Styles heads down to the ring with him. This smoothly segues us into…

Match #3: Finn Balor vs Damian Priest

This one was a little more even, and an entertaining match considering how short it was. Finn got the advantage and dumped Priest to the outside. Finn meant to follow with a dive, but stopped when Rhea Ripley stood in front of Priest. That allowed Edge to spear Balor for the DQ.

The bad guys then attacked en masse, using Rhea as a shield a couple more times. They complete the beatdown and stand tall to end the segment. I don’t mind that whole sequence, but I really hope Rhea’s role in the stable isn’t just going to be “you can’t hit me, I'm a girl”. She could probably knock AJ out with one punch if she was asked to.

Recap vid of Omos and Lashley, they head out for the MVP lounge segment.

Meanwhile, Kevin Owens and Chad Gable discuss Gable using a solo cup they took from Ezekiel to get some DNA testing performed, since Gable has friends at “the DNA lab”. Owens replies “THE DNA lab?!” because why not have fun with bad writing? We then learn Kevin Owens has an older brother from Nova Scotia, Ken Owens, who will be competing against Ezekiel later tonight.

Back to the MVP Lounge, MVP regales us with tales of Lashley’s betrayal and Omos’s dominance at Backlash. This brings out Cedric Alexander, who also thinks Omos did a fine job. He’s kinda inserting himself back into the Hurt Business when Lashley interrupts. He heads to the ring and beats Cedric up several times, broken up by attempts to go after MVP and Omos.

Our co-GMs are arguing in their office, because Sony Deville wants to know who her opponent is before she heads out to the ring. Adam Pearce tries to explain that she can’t just use her authority to change the match rules if she doesn’t like her opponent, but Sonya ain’t having it. She heads to the ring, and Adam Pearce comes out while she waits for her opponent. He tells Sonya he tried to have this discussion in private, but she wouldn’t let him. Upper management has closed their review of her recent actions, and has decided to terminate her management contract. She’s still an active superstar, and her opponent tonight is…ALEXA BLISS!

Match #4: Alexa Bliss vs Sonya Deville

Alexa has some new ring gear, but still brings her lil doll friend Lily to the ring. She props Lily on the turnbuckle, hits Deville with a DDT, and finishes Deville off with Twisted Bliss for the pinfall squash victory.

Afterwards, Bliss and Lily celebrate while Sonya cries on the floor. Great to have Bliss back, a little weird to have her squash Deville, who recently had feuds with several top superstars.

Another recap video of Rollins and Rhodes at Backlash, as we’re reminded of the start time of the US championship bout.

Ezekiel is in the ring, and Ken Owens heads out. It’s Kevin Owens, in the most affordable wig one can get at Party City. KO readily admits this is stupid, and we’re stupid if we buy it. He asks if the crowd believes Ezekiel is Elias, and they’re split evenly. The crowd and Ezekiel are SHOCKED when KO tosses off the wig  and reveals his true identity. The argument intensifies, Owens attacks Zeke. American Alpha show up to back KO up, and they all end up standing tall after the onslaught.

Becky and Asuka’s recent interaction is recapped, and they are interviewed backstage. If you can, check this out, both women are hilarious. Becky asks what we all want to know - why Asuka has a match “to beat the champ to beat the champ, it doesn’t make any sense!” Amen, Becky. Asuka screams in Japanese, before telling Becky that she gave up the title to be a mommy, but she’s not acting like a mommy - she’s acting like a BAAAYYYYBEEEE.

We have now sent Veer, and Byron Saxton is on the other side of the ring with Veer’s opponent, Frank Lowman. Byron asks why Frank would do this; Frank says he has a wife and triplets back home, and he has to provide for them. 

Match #5: Veer vs Frank Lowman

Frank is then murdered. Veer locks in the Cervical Clutch and that’s that. 

Kevin Patrick’s in back with Cody, who tells us he thinks Seth Rollins is one of the top five superstars in the world. He also won back to back matches against Seth, so that chapter is closed. He’s looking forward to becoming the new United States champ, at 10 eastern time.

Match #6: Cody Rhodes vs Theory © for the United States Championship

We do the third or fourth video recap of Cody and Seth in between entrances, in case you had any concerns about how this match was going to end. The match itself was good, with some decent back and forth action. Cody hurt his knee and tried to show that it was hindering his movement a little. Rhodes had a cool looking sequence where he hit the Disaster Kick, and immediately followed with the rebound Cody cutter, but then Rollins ran in for the DQ finish.

Seth then threw Cody to the announce table and hit the stomp on Cody. Mrs. Pequeno pointed out that Seth’s pants looked weird tonight, with an uneven crotch to leg ratio. This is the investigative journalism you’re coming here for, right?

Match #7: Sasha Banks and Naomi vs Doudrop and Nikki A.S.H., non-title

A short tag match that started with Doudrop getting the upper hand on the tag champs. Nikki ended up tagging herself in and proudly posing with Sasha for a good thirty seconds, yelling to Doudrop that she was in control. Nikki promptly lost control and succumbed to Boss Glow’s tag finisher, eating the pinfall. After the match, Doudrop berated Nikki, asking when she would stop playing around. They were interrupted by Miz heading to the ring in a referee’s shirt.

I like the team of Doudrop and Nikki, although I’m hoping they can revert Nikki to her less stable self and they maybe turn more heelish. 

Miz is going to be refereeing Mustafa Ali’s match against Ciampa, because he felt bad that Ali has been mistreated recently. This really feels like one of those things where Ali asked for his release and rather than grant it, Vince decided to put him back on TV just to have him publicly eat shit. 

Match #8: Mustafa Ali vs Ciampa, with the Miz as special guest referee

Ali and Ciampa did their best under the circumstances. It was the usual bad ref shenanigans, though, with slow counts for Ali while Ciampa’s transgressions were largely ignored. A Ciampa reverse DDT led to a fast count and victory.

I don’t think Ciampa has gotten any kind of real introduction on Raw. I guess we’re just supposed to know him from NXT, but given the number of video packages we get on Raw, it seems like an oversight.

We then get what appeared to be a video recap of Lacey Evan’s last few video packages, where she told her rough life story. On Smackdown, she actually came out in person, but before she did the announcer told the crowd to give her the respect she deserved. So…is she a heel? Was the character change actually not a character change? Or was this video package meant to backtrack that? I don’t know and I am so confused.

A recap of Lashley and Omos earlier leads to Bobby Lashley telling us that he’s tired of MVP’s interference, and wants Omos in a steel cage match next week.

A video rehash of the 24/7 wedding follows, and then we’re backstage walking and talking with Dana Brooke, Tamina, and R-Truth. They both want divorces from their trash husbands, and Truth is ready to make that happen. Tozawa and Reggie show up with suits, candy, flowers, and apologies, but Tamina says it’s too late. Truth serves Reggie with divorce papers, but Akira Tozawa high tails it outta there before Truth can serve him. Tamina explains that Tozawa has to be served for the divorce to be official, so Truth chases after him. Reggie tries to apologize to Dana, but Tamina steps in and denies him.

Main Event: Bianca Belair vs Asuka

This is a championship qualifying match. Becky Lynch joins commentary for this one, and she reminds me of how good she is when she’s able to riff off script. The match is a fine back and forth, but I really loved the ending sequence. Bianca gets Asuka up for the KOD, but Asuka rolls her into an armbar. Belair then powers Asuka up and hits a one arm powerbomb, but then Becky Lynch yanks Belair out of the ring for our third disqualification finish of the night. 

Becky attacks Asuka, hits the Manhandle Slam, and walks up the ramp while Bianca checks on Asuka.

The beginning of an episode of 9-1-1 lets us know we’re done here.

You’d think an episode of Raw that follows up a good pay per premium live event would be pretty good. You’d also think a Raw with NINE wrestling matches would be promising! But the best matches ended in disqualification, and two of the others were squashes. So really it was more like a four short match show. Still, our stories moved forward, several in very confusing ways. I’m looking at you, Lacey Evans.

I appreciate you stopping by, and would love it if you drop your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also follow me on Twitter @ElOsoPequeno, where I try to remember to post whenever I update the blog. I recap Raw, Dynamite, and Rampage weekly, and recap anything else I happen to watch. There’s also a weekly wrap up on Fridays, and I’ll do predictions before any big AEW or WWE pay per premium live events.

Have a good one!