That was one weird Raw last night. Apparently reacting to the slumping ratings, Vince called up Ricochet, Tomasso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, and Aleister Black from NXT. The crowd, which might as well have been given free tranquilizers for all the noise they didn't make, responded as one might expect from a crowd that had never seen any of the new stars before. That was perhaps the deadest Raw crowd I've ever heard.
Ricochet showed off his high-flying skills, but gave a horrible promo following a good promo by Finn Balor. The contrast was palpable. BTW, you can do all the high flying maneuvers you want, but w/o a story and/or character, you'll just have a high-spot guy. He's great, but they need to build him up as a personality and give him a good storyline.
Ciampa and Gargano are among the best wrestlers in the company but, as anyone who watches NXT knows, they've been feuding with each other, a classic feud, I might add, but here they are teasing none of that tension. They beat the Revival clean, so they're likely building to a feud, which would be much more intriguing with the added tension of the blood feud between Ciampa and Gargano.
The Lacey Evans 'Lady In Red' tease was just strange. Word is that they want to give her a big push.
Look, I understand their need to develop new stars. But throwing the very best that NXT has to offer on the show w/o context does nobody any favors. I don't see ratings success from this show, to put it mildly.
