WWE: Flops from June 3rd episode of RAW

We’re merely days away from the Payback PPV, which will take place in Chicago, home of CM Punk. WWE has advertised a few matches, and you can expect Dolph Ziggler vs Alberto Del Rio on the card, as Ziggler has been cleared to compete. This past week’s RAW saw The Shield in action, along with Daniel Bryan participating in two matches on the same night. In this article, we take a look at 5 flops of the show.

5. Curtis Axel wins via count out

This is what peeves me about WWE. When you’re trying to build a guy, and claim him to be the future of the company, it’s better to give him pin fall victories, rather than count out wins. The WWE Universe doesn’t see Curtis Axel as a legitimate threat to anyone, much less to a guy like John Cena. Having a guy like Paul Heyman on his side should have worked in Axel’s favor. After all, it worked with guys like RVD and the rest. The reason being the other guys at least had a few pin fall victories. Triple H dominated against Axel, and he was made to look weak against Cena in both their matches. I’d like to see Axel picking up some victories using the Perfectplex, which at this point doesn’t even look like a finisher, with Cena powering out easily. WWE needs to think long term, and Axel needs some real victories under his belt.

4. Khali beats Fandango by count out

This just had to happen. Fandango, who will likely become the new Intercontinental champion not only lost most of his recent matches, but has only participated in two full length matches in recent memory. How WWE expects a character to get over without making the guy perform is what goes beyond my understanding. This week, he faced The Great Khali, in what can only be described as one minute of snooze fest. Is Fandango ready to become a champion? No. But since the norm of becoming a champion and being a champion is losing almost all of the TV matches, Fandango is qualified to be one. Sadly, that wasn’t a joke.

3. Wade Barrett loses to The Miz after knocking him out

In what can only be explained as a Cena-esque come back, The Miz was attacked from behind by Wade Barrett, who proceeded to knock him out with the bull hammer elbow. This resulted in their match (Huh?!), and saw Miz dominating, and winning the bout. Yes, you read the correctly. Miz, who got knocked out, not only participated in a match immediately, but dominated it and won against the current WWE Intercontinental champion! And we wonder why people find RAW absurd and hard to believe.

2. The Divas’ match gets 5 minutes

Although I was a big fan of the women’s division in the WWE years ago, a 5 minute ‘botchamania’ match isn’t what the crowd pays money to see. The Bellas teamed up with AJ to take on the Funkadactyles and Kaitlyn, which completely turned off the fans who were hot till then. Although the main event didn’t suffer from this, it’s hard to explain why WWE wouldn’t put Natalya, arguably the best and the only ‘wrestler’ in the division, in the match.

1. NBA game scares Vince and the management

WWE kicked off with Stephanie and Vince coming out, with the intentions of not letting Triple H perform on RAW ever again. As reports suggested, this was supposed to happen after a few more weeks, which would have seen Triple H trying to compete on RAW. The change was made at the last minute to rush the storyline due to the NBA game which ran parallel to the second hour of RAW. Not only did this completely blow out the storyline and rush everything, it didn’t make much difference in the end as RAW scored its lowest rating this year. Not a good time to be a part of the WWE management, perhaps?