Padding the card with leftover ideas
Two weeks out from WrestleMania 41, the Raw creative staff is acting like a college student writing a term paper at 3:00 AM. Adding Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY against B-Fab and Michin, alongside LA Knight versus Austin Theory and a Finn Balor-JD McDonagh singles match, screams of a show lacking direction. We are less than 15 days away from the biggest spectacle of the year, yet the mid-card feels like it was put through a blender.
Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY are absolute superstars who deserve to be anchoring legitimate championship programs. Instead, they are being tossed into a tag match against B-Fab and Michin that feels like a filler segment designed to burn time before a commercial break for yogurt or a mid-tier action movie. It’s a waste of their combined aura. Watching two of the most dangerous women on the roster reduced to putting together a makeshift tag team match highlights the lack of depth in the current women’s division storylines.
The Judgement Day comedy of errors
The decision to put Finn Balor against JD McDonagh is the epitome of the internal circular firing squad. We have seen these guys work together in the Judgement Day for ages, and now we are expected to care about a singles match as if there is actual heat. Is this meant to be a grudge match? A test of skill? Nobody knows, because the logic behind the dissolution of stable dynamics in WWE has been shaky at best. It’s like watching two brothers fight in the kitchen because their mom bought the wrong brand of cereal.
Then there is LA Knight and Austin Theory. Austin Theory has been stuck in booking purgatory since his mid-card championship reign went sideways, while LA Knight is arguably the most over guy on the roster despite the lack of a real championship belt around his waist. Throwing them into a match this close to the grandest stage of them all feels like an attempt to keep them occupied rather than building toward a coherent WrestleMania payoff. It’s not necessarily a bad match on paper, but it’s a wasted opportunity for a proper build.
Missing the mark on big moments
As recent reports suggest, the creative team is juggling a lot, but this feels lazy. When you compare this to the historic ladder match drama or the chaos following Chris Jericho’s return to AEW, you realize how much weight these Raw segments are failing to carry. We have the UCL quarterfinals coming up next week, meaning fans have better ways to spend their Tuesday. WWE should be locking us in with high-stakes storytelling, not throwaway matches that exist only to fill three hours.
The talent is there, the ring work will likely be fine, but the emotional investment is nonexistent. Rhea Ripley has shown she can carry a division, but even she cannot fix a script that puts her in a random tag match against opponents she has no organic business facing right now. This is a classic case of booking for the sake of checking boxes rather than crafting a narrative. If we are supposed to be excited for the build to Philadelphia, this is certainly not the way to get us there.
Maybe this is just a reset. Maybe they are waiting for the final Raw before the show to drop the big angles, but the wait is becoming a punishment. JD McDonagh is a great worker, but putting him in a meaningful spot against Balor feels like buying a Honda Civic and acting like it’s a Ferrari. It’s functional, it gets you to your destination, but it’s not exactly going to turn heads or win grand prix titles. WrestleMania 41 is supposed to be the pinnacle, the apex, the moment where everything we’ve tracked since the last show hits a crescendo.
Instead, we are getting a B-plus effort on an A-minus schedule. Someone needs to stop the panic mode booking and start treating the fan intelligence with a little more respect. We remember the classics, we know what a high-stakes WrestleMania build looks like, and this current Raw lineup isn’t even in the same zip code. It’s time for the writers to stop shuffling the deck chair and actually steer this ship toward an actual destination. WrestleMania 41 is 14 days away, and the clock is not just ticking, it’s practically mocking the current lack of vision.
