Monday Night Raw (April 24)

Can this just keep happening forever?

If you watch wrestling for goofarounds on the mic rather than the in-ring action, this was actually a pretty good episode of Raw. For the most part.

For example, the opening segment between Jericho and The Miz over their respective talk shows. I started out hating it, but ended up loving it, because Ambrose showed up with HIS own talk show and acknowledged and referenced his stupidly awesome talk show feud with Jericho from last year. And gave him a new light up jacket, which was just a regular jacket with Christmas lights stapled to it.

Of course, thid led to a Mystery Partner Tag Match main event that we have to talk about, because for some reason, The Miz's mystery partner was Bray Wyatt, who showed up to the match late, won the match for The Miz, and then hit Sister Abigail on Miz post match. NONEOF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE. The only way it could make sense is if they're setting up for Wyatt-Ambrose after Payback, but they were just setting up for Wyatt-Balor after Payback. Perhaps there were hints in Wyatt's long videotaped spookypromo mid-show, but I refuse to watch those anymore on principle.

Meanwhile, Alexa Bliss somehow manages to be even better at being a heel. Her work with the crowd, Bayley, and Sasha was top notch stuff. The match with Sasha was nothing much, but at least it was better than the clusterfuck short match between Dana Brooke and Alicia Fox, freed from 205 Live to botch finishes on Raw.

Kalisto beat Braun Strowman! Kalisto has new awful music that still maanges to be better than his old awful music and also hilariously worse somehow. Yes, it was a fluke victory in a gimmick match knocking Strowman off the apron to stand in a dumpster, and yes Kalisto got destroyed afterward, but really, that's the best that match could have possibly gone. And no Reigns run-in, either.

Apollo Crews is probably fucked. The crowd was deader for his squash of Curt Hawkins than they were for the Obligatory Cruiserweight Tag Match. Poor guy. Not his fault, honestly.

Anyway, there were the usual pre-PPV singles matches for tag wrestlers and tag matches for singles wrestlers and none of it really stod out and Payback's gonna be a clusterfuck of a show.