10 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 25)

5. Squash City

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Oh please tell us that WWE is seriously bringing back the squash match to build up wrestlers. (That’s not being said with even a hint of sarcasm.)

We saw the return of the squash match Monday when Nia Jax debuted on Raw and defeated local independent wrestler Britt Baker in brutal fashion, running her over and even picking her up after a leg drop, only to hit the finishing move again for the pin. Jax looked just as dominant as she has throughout the vast majority of her NXT run, which made for a solid debut on the main roster.

Squash matches are a great tool to build up superstars (they were used to great effect with Ryback, for example) without having to job out your main roster wrestlers. It’s far better for Jax to batter a different indy wrestler each week than to beat up Summer Rae and Alicia Fox over and over for a month. Same goes for Braun Strowman, who mangled James Ellsworth rather than Bo Dallas.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.