3 Ups & 12 Downs From WWE Raw (May 31)

2. A Main Event-Worthy Match

Drew McIntyre Kofi Kingston
WWE.com

Putting aside the criticism lodged earlier about going back to the well – and the fact that we got this same match without a conclusive finish – Drew McIntyre and Kofi Kingston had a pretty damn good #1 contender’s match on Monday night.

The two veterans “ran it back” after last week’s double-DQ and pulled out all the stops, with Kofi hanging with Drew and refusing to stay down despite the Scottish Warrior’s hard-hitting offense. McIntyre turned an SOS into a spinning Futureshock DDT at one point, which would have popped the crowd if they existed.

But Kingston hung in there and even countered a Claymore with a Trouble in Paradise for a very close 2 count. Just when it looked like Kofi had some momentum, McIntyre hit a perfectly timed Claymore on a diving Kingston to pick up the win.

After sitting through yet another dismal, awful Raw, it was nice to actually enjoy some good wrestling with a clean finish. So there was that.

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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.