2 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (March 29)

8. Beat The Champ To Get A Shot

Sheamus WWE
WWE.com

There are times that defeating a champion to earn a title shot can make sense. But WWE does it so often that it’s lost all meaning, and it just serves to make the champion look weak.

On Monday night, we saw Riddle, who has been a mentally challenged punching bag recently, continue to act like a goober, get jumped by Sheamus, and then lose to the Celtic Warrior in a non-title match. It’s pretty clear what this meaningless match two weeks before WrestleMania is setting up… a United States Championship match at Mania. How daring!

They could have simply had Sheamus attack Riddle backstage again or maybe after a match against Drew Gulak or someone like that, and then you’re off to the races for a title match challenge. You didn’t need to give the match away on Raw – with a conclusive finish – less than two weeks before the PPV.

But WWE is gonna WWE. So we got Sheamus beating Riddle cleanly on Monday. Why not?

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Contributor
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.