Welcome to the Raw review for June 6, 2022
The Send Off
You can talk about Cody Rhodes and have a lot of different discussions about his injury and his match at Hell in the Cell. Should he have wrestled with his injury? From what we know now, having a complete tear actually allowed him to wrestle. You can’t injury it any more. Was the WWE at fault for letting him wrestle? I can guarantee that people try to talk him out of it, just like people tried to talk Mick Foley out of being thrown off the Cell many years before. Was it fake? Absolutely not. Forget the color and look at the swelling. Also, the way he moved was different.
Cody is done wrestling for the next few months. The fact that he had, pardon the pun, a hell of the match even without the injury shows what kind of performer he is. He loves the business and maybe he wrestled because he was advertised and he didn’t want to disappoint. Talking to the crowd on Raw, you could see the pain and the pride in his eyes. This also allowed Seth Rollins ( who is not getting enough credit for this match. When you have an injury like this, you need to have someone you trust across the ring from you) to talk to Cody. This is one of my favorite things, when the wrestler gives his real world thoughts in character. Everything that Seth said to Cody was real, even though he is a heel and had to attack him after. When Cody does come back, he will return even hotter then before and the only option is for him to finally take the title from The Head of The Table. Take a rest Mr Rhodes. You damn sure earned it.
Judgement
If you guessed Finn Balor would be the fourth member of Edge’s Judgement Day stable, it was a pretty good guess. Balor works, especially with Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest. If you, however, guessed that Balor and the others would beat down Edge and take over the group, buy a lottery ticket because you have a psychic gift my friend. It was shocking, and you could tell the crowd thought so too because they did not know how to act. We got no reason for this and Edge looks to be off TV for awhile.
I like that we did not go down the old storyline of new member joins stable and then takes it over. When this happens, you are just waiting for the turn which comes after months of matches. Making it happen quickly allows for the audience to sink their teeth into the meat of the story quickly. The pressure now falls on Finn, as he has to give a compelling reason why this happened. Heel Balor is exciting, but if this is done right, the whole group will reach a new level.