WWE RAW 5/13/2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show where everybody is definitely fine with all the King of the Ring results and nobody at all is mad about them (certainly nobody on the internet — perish the thought)! As your home for only the best Monday night wrestling opinions, we will definitely be having a conversation about how this week's main event went down, and we have thoughts about most of the other King and Queen of the Ring matches, as well. However, we simply don't have the space here to cover everything, which occasionally means that if you want to know about, say, the opening promo segment with Drew McIntyre and Damian Priest, you'll have to check out our "Raw" results page (though for the record, pretty much everyone here at WINC thought Priest absolutely smoked McIntyre on the mic).

But we have lots of other thing to talk about, especially thanks to the EIGHT matches on "Raw" this week! Is the Chad Gable/Otis storyline giving us all the feels? Are we excited about the prospect of Carlito joining The Judgment Day? And most importantly, has Lillian Garcia just not aged in the last five years? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 5/13/2024 episode of "WWE Raw."

I was incredibly impressed with all of the great in-ring action we got during tonight's "Raw," but there was a more simple segment that I absolutely adored on tonight's show, and that was the appearance of Lilian Garcia, an iconic voice from my time growing up a wrestling fan. I was so happy to see her make a surprise appearance, and when I saw her posts on Instagram about being backstage and hanging out with Samantha Irvin, I loved it even more. When she announced Kofi Kingston to the ring, hearing her voice was like a warm, welcoming hug, reminding me of the evenings watching wrestling as a kid with my family. I also thought this was extremely well done, with Garcia not taking up too much of the spotlight from Irvin, but giving Irvin her flowers, while still being a small highlight of the show with just one more announcement, for old times sake.

"Raw" and "WWE SmackDown" have amazing Black female voices now between Irvin and the newly called-up Alicia Taylor, and it was so amazing to see Garcia acknowledge them both on-air and on her social media. Garcia was a pioneer, being the first female to announce at a WrestleMania, and to see her supporting the women of today was just fantastic. Garcia was the first female announcer to really make it "main stream," for lack of a better term, with her talent, everyone knew her, wrestling fans or not. She really paved the way for the awesome women with iconic, powerful voices of today.

On an episode of "Raw" with a high-stakes tournament, amazing matches, and storylines continuing before a quickly-approaching premium live event, hearing a familiar voice just made me stop for a second and appreciate something other than the King & Queen of the Ring. One thing I did learn this evening was that Garcia is not yet in the WWE Hall of Fame, and I'm strongly considering a petition or a strongly-worded letter to WWE Headquarters to make that happen for her in 2025. With the focus on announcers within recent years, I think we need to acknowledge the talent that started it all, especially for women.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I know a lot of people probably loved GUNTHER vs. Kofi Kingston, and I'm happy for you. It was probably a highly entertaining match if you could get invested in it. I couldn't, because the beginning of the match was built around Kingston viciously attacking GUNTHER's leg, and as soon as that part was over, they basically forgot about it.

I'm wasn't totally sure having Kingston start the match like this is the ideal way to go about it in the first place, because it seemed like they were risking audience sympathy moving away from the babyface Kofi and toward the heel GUNTHER. But the reason I thought that way is because I (like a simpleton) expected an injury of that nature to linger throughout the match, requiring GUNTHER to work around and overcome it in order to win. Not the kind of thing you usually want your heel doing. What I (a fool, an absolute rube) didn't realize was that this was actually about presenting GUNTHER as a cyborg terminator who is immune from pain and has like a healing factor or something, I don't know. The dude just stopped selling the leg completely when the match called for him to do so; I'm not sure what other assumption I should be making. He went back to selling it once or twice, very inconsistently, but for the most part it was like the leg injury never happened. So, uh, good job making sure Kofi wasn't in danger of losing that sympathy, I guess?

In our "SmackDown" review column last Friday, I praised Bianca Belair for her selling, even on offense. This was like the opposite of that. It just took me completely out the match, to the point that it didn't really matter what they did from then on. It just feels like breaking the rules of how wrestling is supposed to work, and if you break the rules of your fictional universe for literally no reason, that's the end of my immersion and my investment. It just sucks, and I had hoped for better from a wrestler of GUTHER's caliber.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

As you'll read a little later, I'm not particularly thrilled with the fact that we won't be getting an Ilja Dragunov/GUNTHER trilogy match anytime soon — strictly from the perspective of impatience and selfishness on my part — but with a step back and a more holistic view, it stands to reason that you can't just rocket-strap all of your recent "NXT" call-ups in the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments at once. With that in mind, Lyra Valkyria looking like gold in her first two matches on "Raw" makes all the sense in the world and is more than fine by me. Yes, she came to the main roster with the equity of having been a former NXT Women's Champion, as did Dragunov and Carmelo Hayes on the men's side, but in terms of name power and instantaneous familiarity with the majority of main roster fans, Valkyria stood to gain the most of the three with an impressive run in the tournament, so I'm glad she's getting to reap the benefits here.

(Yes, I'm aware that Hayes is still very much alive in his particular tournament and maybe he has an extended run afoot but with Randy Orton in his crosshairs, and Bobby Lashley likely ready to rip his head off first chance he gets, plus a whole other round to get through just to get to the final, the odds aren't exactly heavily in his favor.)

Do I think Valkyria is winning the whole thing? I do not. I'd call her semifinal matchup against IYO SKY next week a tossup at best, and beyond that, she'd likely have to top one of Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, or Tiffany Stratton in the final, and I just don't see that happening. Nonetheless, she's gotten enough of the proverbial rub already that her main roster run is off to an outstanding start, and the little detail of a tweak to the name of her finishing move from Nightwish to Nightwing tells me that the higher-ups are paying extra close attention to all things Lyra Valkyria at the moment, which is also a good thing. Who knows, maybe this tournament run still has some legs left under it after all.

Written by Jon Jordan

WWE could have used this fatal four-way match to set up new competitors for The Miz and R-Truth, but we're once again going back into the Judgment Day well, but this time, with JD McDonagh alongside Finn Balor. I initially started off disliking this for a more general reason: the fact that the match wasn't a tornado tag bout, and the wrestlers had to tag in and out, even though every match like this always breaks down into double-team maneuvers and inference. That always drives me nuts, and I'll always hate it. However, I ended up disliking it for much, much more, and not just for the fact The Creed Brothers or New Catch Republic won't get a shot at the World Tag Team Championships.

Even though Judgment Day is the most obvious choice as a heel team to take on The Awesome Truth (like anyone believes Authors of Pain are credible right now, the Final Testament Faction has just been dead in the water from the start), I think the Creeds or Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne make sense. Both teams are babyfaces like the champs, but I think fans would accept them defeating the comedy team of Miz and R-Truth. I think it's inevitable that Awesome Truth is not walking away with the tag team titles, and to be honest, I'm surprised they've kept them for so long after WrestleMania. I don't think I'm alone in thinking this, either. It was a great feel-good moment at Mania, and it's time to move on. I do, however, hate the fact it's going to be Balor and McDonagh who win the belts, as I was really looking forward to Judgment Day going in to a downward spiral after it was announced Rhea Ripley would be on the shelf for awhile.

What irks me about the Judgment Day storyline the most is the fact WWE is trying to work in Carlito to the group, in such a similar way as to the story with McDonagh joining. It's so similar, down to the fact it's Priest who doesn't want Carlito involved. Carlito has also been floundering since his return to WWE, which is pretty sad, considering so many fans wanted him back. He just hasn't clicked anywhere. If he didn't click with the LWO or Legado del Fantasma, there's no way he's going to fit in with Judgment Day. The faction also doesn't need another tag team, made of Carlito and Mysterio, if McDonagh and Balor are going to be winning the championships.

With Mami on the shelf, I really thought we were working toward a Judgment Day split with the dissension over the last few weeks. Priest is a talent, in my opinion, that works well as a heel or a face, and if he would split from Judgment Day and go on as a babyface champion against a heel Drew McIntyre, that would work well for me. With Balor and McDonagh likely winning gold and bringing it back to the Judgment Day, that doesn't seem likely. It's just overall a terrible story in my opinion, and I think Priest deserves better as a champion. Everything about this tag team match and the Judgment Day segments overall on this episode were a mess to me. Both the division and the Judgment Day as a whole need a big refresh.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Several weeks ago, Chad Gable finally went heel, turning on Sami Zayn while he was being embraced by his wife. It was incredible, and really solidified Gable's new direction. He has been brutal to the Alpha Academy every time he gets the chance —Monday night, he wanted Akira Tozawa to try his luck against Bronson Reed (that did not go well) and Otis to soften up Sami Zayn before their match at King and Queen of the Ring.

Otis and Zayn were having a solid match, but the crowd was really getting behind Otis. They were enthusiastically calling for The Caterpillar. Gable kept telling him no, but ultimately Otis ripped off his shirt and gave the fans what they wanted, hitting The Worm and dropping an elbow on Zayn. The crowd went wild while Gable seethed. Gable berating Otis ended up distracting him long enough for Zayn to hit the Helluva Kick and get the win.

Following the loss, Gable berated Otis and pushed him, leading Zayn to return to the ring and take out Gable. Otis apologized profusely as they walked back up the ramp, but it wasn't enough for Gable, who Gable slapped Otis in the face to show his dissatisfaction.

Gable has been an excellent heel so far, and when Otis finally turns on him, it's going to be very satisfying. Fans were treated to a little taste when Otis defied him made the fans happy. When we get the Otis completely turning on his former friend with Tozawa and Maxxine Dupri by his side, it's going to be great.

Written by Samantha Schipman

Sometimes it's really easy to come at these "hated" assignments, as professional wrestling shows are rarely perfect. Usually, for me, something sticks out as just plain bad, or too goofy, or nonsensical, or occurring on a Wednesday, for instance. But other times, I can tackle these things in a way that, yes, still says "hated," but really means "didn't get what I wanted." After all, deep down, we're all still just wrestling fans. And though the way the match was put together should have told me that it was never going to go my way —malong with a crowd that was overwhelmingly in favor of "Main Event" Jey Uso yeeting his way into the next round — I got the hopes that I let get way, way up for an Ilja Dragunov/GUNTHER trilogy match get absolutely crushed when Uso prevailed in the end.

At one point, I said the words "Are we really about to get Dragunov/GUNTHER 3 NEXT WEEK?" Within 90 seconds, the universe reminded me that we don't say these things out loud, just like mentioning a goalie with a shutout or a pitcher with a no-hitter. I blew it. That's my fault, fellow fans of this incredible rivalry. But hey, we also had the backstage interaction between our preferred combatants after Dragunov namedropped the former WALTER, so me getting all excited had plenty of backstory to it.

But really, this is just me being impatient and selfish, because let's get serious: We are getting this match before too long and it's probably for the better, since a showdown on an episode of "Raw," even one featuring King of the Ring matches, isn't exactly WrestleMania. We also got a staredown after the match between GUNTHER and Dragunov, even before "The Ring General" turned his attention to Uso, so we're teasing a follow-up already. And that could very well happen next week when GUNTHER and Uso square off, with Dragunov affecting the outcome of their semifinal match one way or the other.

Written by Jon Jordan