3 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (12 January - Results & Review)

DOWNS…

6. Running It Back?

Why are we running back Maxxine Dupri versus Becky Lynch next week?

This will be the sixth televised singles match between them, with five of those coming in the past three months. Worse, the quality of the matches between the two has been diminishing since their second and third encounters. The last two Women’s Intercontinental Championship matches haven’t been that good, so why would anyone expect another conflict between the two to be any better?

Becky’s paranoid rant about how Mediocre Maxxine getting a rematch so quickly when she had to wait two months was humorous enough, though it rang a bit true. Raw GM Adam Pearce allowed Dupri to take most of the holiday season to train in the Dungeon in advance of defending the title.

Dupri’s backstage promo, where she gave Otis and Akira Tozawa a pep talk, was laughable in some way, as the former valet who has strung together three wins after being a laughingstock talked up two former champions. But here’s the problem: her delivery wasn’t bad at all; it just isn’t believable. She’s not going to snap Lynch’s ankle.

Honestly, they need to pull the plug on this experiment next week. Have Lynch pillmanize Maxxine’s ankle to sideline her for long enough for any hint of another rematch to dissipate and let her train some more. Maybe she can come back in a tag team with Nattie and try her hand there.

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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.