Instant Reaction - WWE Raw 5/20
By Benjamin Tucker, PWTorch TV specialist

DVR Guide - What to Watch Later:

- Ryback's opening promo (Q1)
- Curt Axel introduction (Q4-Q5)
- Six-man tag (Q9-Q10)

Overall Score - 8.0

WWE was certainly committed to good wrestling and putting over new faces tonight by putting their newer talent into fresh feuds or continuing to establish them to the audience. Big E. got a big win over Del Rio, The Shield won the second best Raw match of the year, and of course the newly christened Curtis Axel got a huge spotlight due to his association with Paul Heyman.

I guess it is a good idea for Axel to be paired with Heyman. Because unlike guys like Cody Rhodes or Titus O'Neil who can get along fine on their own, Axel needs Heyman's support. He's been with the WWE for years, and while he can have a good match, he cuts a worse promo than Zack Ryder and Justin Gabriel's love child. Enter Heyman. I'm surprised that WWE went with this move, but it's fitting. They need new stars and associating someone with Heyman is one of the fastest ways to get there. Will he be a major success like Lesnar? I doubt it, but we'll see. It was almost a perfect first night for him, save for one small issue - Triple H taking the spotlight. Triple H getting medical attention shouldn't have ended Raw tonight. It completely overshadowed Axel going head-to-head with him, already devaluing his worth. A Triple H injury angle won't make headlines like a new star beating him down would. I'm not saying he had to beat him clean, but don't ignore the guy. It was a real missed opportunity and a jarring difference from the rest of the star-developing show.

From the beginning, this "new star initiative" seemed to take off. Ryback seemed to have a renewed sense of vigor tonight and I thought he cut a very nice promo (especially for him). His mannerisms are still borderline comedic, but he is at least a heel with motivations. His attack on Ryder later in the night only continued to build him up after weeks of being broken down by Cena. While nearly forgotten by the end of the show, Titus O'Neil put up a good fight against Sheamus as well. Follow this up with a solid match resulting in Big E. Langston pinning the number one contender and you can see this new star development theme already pervading the program. Even the Divas match felt like there was more going on in it.

And then came the six-man tag match. Oh, was it glorious. It looks like they're aiming for a Daniel Bryan heel turn, but I would be hard pressed to pull the trigger on it given the flurries of offense he can give. His performance, along with the other five competitors in the match, stole the show with a great sense of pacing and nice nearfalls. It didn't match the Punk-Cena match on Raw back in February in terms of emotion, but the pure energy found in the match was astounding. The Shield looked great in victory, but so did the face team in defeat. The titles were elevated, as were all six men. This was great, and worked especially well since there weren't any long-form wrestling matches on the show up until that point. WWE seemed to change up the pacing of tonight's show some and it worked.

The only segment that felt like a true miss was the opening tag match, where Fandango randomly danced outside the ring and Wade Barrett took another unnecessary loss. Other than that (and perhaps Triple H's end-of-show moment) this was a very entertaining Raw.

Overall, this was the first Raw in months that I can remember not feeling bored by the third hour. The crowd brought high energy to the show and maintained it throughout. Several new faces were spotlighted, and while some lingering issues still exist on Raw, tonight's episode felt fresher than anything I've seen from WWE in some time.

Any questions or comments? Feel free to message me on Twitter @BTuckertorch .

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