WWE RAW 6/3/2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved – Wrestling Inc.

Yeah, I know. Laugh if you want, but I legitimately enjoy it when acts as dead as The Final Testament seemed a few weeks ago actually show signs of life and get me excited for something new.

Last week, Kross randomly showed up in a backstage segment to ask Xavier Woods why he’s still wasting his time with Kofi Kingston. It caught my attention because Kross wasn’t doing his normal “Tick tock, my wife is super hot and she reads tarot, BE AFRAAAAAAAID” thing. He was dressed normal, he was talking normal. He sounded so much more natural than I’ve ever heard him sound before, and more than that — he actually has a legitimate point. The New Day in 2024 doesn’t have the same pop as they did at any previous point in their careers since joining up (granted, I’m not sure what kind of pop any tag team is expected to have in a division inexplicably still championed by what is primarily a backstage comedy act, but whatever). They’re honestly just not terribly relevant at the moment; they haven’t had belts of any kind in over a year, and even that was a two-month vanity run with the NXT tag titles; it’s been more than four years since they held gold on the main roster. Woods is the youngest member of the group, and not only is he the only one who’s never been world champion, he’s never held a WWE singles title at all. He’s barely even wrestled singles matches — since joining the main roster in 2013, he’s had 54 televised singles matches on “Raw” and “SmackDown,” and one PLE singles match (when he won a watered-down version of King of the Ring). 55 matches, total, in 11 years. Honestly it’s amazing it took this long for a manipulative heel to be like “Hey, do you realize that these guys have been holding back your career for a decade now?”

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That’s what I like best about this version of Kross: he’s manipulative, but he’s not going full over-the-top psychopath anymore. He’s using warped logic and twisted psychology to try and corrupt and destroy a beloved babyface team, presumably because it’s fun. I like that, and I really liked the New Day vs. Authors of Pain match Monday night, which was exactly long enough to do what it needed to do. Woods gets beaten up for a few minutes, goes to make the hot tag, but Kross is distracting Kofi so Woods can’t tag out and gets pinned. Boom. Done. Now Kross, who’s already been planted seeds in Woods’ head, has arranged for Woods to lose a match because Kingston was out of position. Again, it’s a twisted way of making your point — by manipulating events so it looks like you’re right. Now Woods has reason to doubt Kingston, just a little bit, and Kross has his foot in the door. You’ve achieved a major story advancement in like 5-7 minutes of TV time. It was perfect.

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What I like best about this story overall, though, is that I have no idea where it’s going, but I’m very invested in the possibilities. The New Day has always been vocal about wanting to be the team that stays together, but things have changed; after two years, it might be time to admit that it doesn’t look like Big E is coming back from his neck injury. That means they can’t finish out their careers as a trio, and the Woods/Kingston tag team feels superfluous in 2024. Could they actually split up? Have they finally accepted that going out as a team isn’t in the cards? Could we get a heel Woods in the Final Testament, or just a heel Woods out on his own, presumably stepping over Kofi’s dead body to finally go for the singles run he never even had the chance to achieve? Those are very intriguing possibilities.

And if it’s a swerve and they actually stay together, that’s fine too; I’m a sucker for the power of friendship prevailing over evil. The important thing is that they made me care, and Karrion Kross hasn’t done that in … ever.

Written by Miles Schneiderman