7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 22)

Downs...

6. Balor’s Rollup Win

When is a win not really a win? When the wrestler is beaten up for most of the match and only wins with a lucky rollup.

Finn Balor is the first-ever Universal Champion. He never lost his title. But you already knew this because Michael Cole mentions it every week. So you’d think a match between Balor and Bobby Lashley would be a pretty competitive affair.

Instead, Lashley dominated much of the match, with Balor hitting a couple hope spots and escaping a few big moves. Then, when Lashley went for his finisher, Finn broke free, hit a rollup and got the pin. If this was Heath Slater, that would have been fine. But this is a former world champion who lucked out a win in a match where he was playing defense for 80% of the time.

WWE has booked successful David versus Goliath matches before, but they seem to forget how to do it way too often. You can make the hulking Lashley look like a monster without Balor having to look like a cruiserweight jobber who got lucky. Why is it so offensive to have Finn hit him with some high-impact moves to stun him, but it’s OK to simply roll him up for the pin?