7 Ups And 9 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 1)

By Scott Carlson /

5. No One Wins

You have to have when you speak too soon. Last week, this column praised WWE for having Kevin Owens rebound from his hard-fought loss against Dean Ambrose at the Royal Rumble to defeat Dolph Ziggler in another highly competitive match. For Owens to look good and really be elevated above the Intercontinental Championship level, he needed to win a good match. But Monday, WWE€™s 50/50 booking returned, as Dolph and KO had a rematch, which ended with Ziggler overcoming a match-long beatdown to pull out the win, thus getting his win back. Knowing WWE, this likely will set up the company€™s favorite deal, the rubber match, at Fastlane between the two. (This wouldn€™t be a big deal if WWE didn€™t fall back on this crutch so damn often.)It€™s hard to call this a major negative since it was a good match, and both men are pretty popular. But if one of them is going to advance above the mid-card, then one of them has to win more than half of their encounters.