2 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Mae Young Classic (Sept 12)

1. Martinez, Rayne Disappoint

Mae Young Classic
WWE

Typically with these tournament programs, we get one big main event that is a standout match each episode. We saw that last week with Meiko Satomura versus Killer Kelly.

This week, Ashley (Madison) Rayne fought Mercedes Martinez. On paper, this should have been a pretty damn good match. Both are veterans, and both should have been able to bring home a lacklustre episode and end it on a good note.

Instead, we got a disjointed match that just didn’t feel like a main event. There was some nice chain and mat wrestling initially, (Martinez turning Rayne’s wheelbarrow attempt into a compactor stuck out amongst the mundane), but it didn’t feel like a justified headliner.

It’s especially disappointing considering how great Martinez looked in last year’s Mae Young Classic and Rayne’s record of accomplishment. A good main event could have saved this episode, but it just added to the lacklustre performances.

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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.