The Good
For Raw, they finally escalated the Bayley and Sasha Banks storyline and gave it the time it deserved. Along with that, it felt right on what happened between these two. After losing to the Riott Squad for what feels like the 10th week in a row, Bayley finally had enough and attacked Banks post-match. The crowd went nuts during this which made it feel much better and it felt like it was long overdue. Unfortunately, Kurt Angle sent both of them to counseling to get over this, which is not necessary considering these two have been going at it for weeks. Hopefully, these two get a match at the next PPV.
For Smackdown, team Hell No has reunited! With Daniel Bryan facing off against Luke Harper trying to get retribution for what happened to him last week, Bryan had Harper beat when he applied the Yes lock to him. But, Rowan interfered in the match and the Bludgeon Brothers started to beat up on Bryan. But, Kane came out of nowhere to save his former tag partner. This led to the team reuniting and now they have a championship match at Extreme Rules. While I do think there are other tag teams, such as the Bar, could be in the spot to face the Bludgeon Brothers, this program between these two teams has the potential to be great.
The Bad
For Raw, it seems like they do not what to do with Nia Jax when it comes to booking her. First, she is trying to overcome bullying from Alexa Bliss in her first rivalry to get the women’s championship. Then, during her program with Ronda Rousey, she comes off as a bully. Now, in her second program with Alexa Bliss for the championship, she is helping out Ronda Rousey’s best friend, Natalya to help fight off Bliss? There are too many holes when it comes to booking how Jax comes off so WWE needs to figure that out.
For Smackdown, they tend to promote matches that don’t end up happening. We STILL have yet to see Andrade Almas vs. Sin Cara, and this week, we were unable to see Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura. Now, they cited that Nakamura was injured before the event started, which is fine. But, to keep having this trend of matches that don’t end up happening, it makes the average fan look stupid for believing that the match is going to happen in the first place.
The Final Verdict
Overall, both shows were really good this week. They built up for Extreme Rules while still having great matches on their shows. Raw had a great main event between Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins, had an entertaining segment with Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens, and finally reached a breaking point between Bayley and Sasha Banks. Smackdown, on the other hand, had a pretty good main event between Daniel Bryan and Luke Harper, built up the WWE Championship program between Rusev and AJ Styles, and lastly had a wild 6-man tag match. With that being said though, I will have to say that Raw had the better show this week. The show was entertaining from start to finish and left us wanting more going into next week. In conclusion, both brands have been putting on much better shows since Wrestlemania and hopefully they can keep this momentum going all the way into Summerslam!
