4 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec. 13)

by Scott Carlson

1. Face Turn For Lashley?

If you missed it last week, WWE aired a video package on Bobby Lashley that put him over as an amateur wrestler and former member of the U.S. Army. It was a very strange video to display for a guy who has been a villain for quite some time.

Some observed that unless it was accidental, WWE was setting Lashley up for a face turn without doing some big epiphany. The video package was a way of reintroducing the “real” Lashley.

Then on Monday, Bobby was faced with an underdog story: win three singles matches to get into the WWE Championship match, a task that you’d expect to be foisted upon a hero, not a heel. They went one subtle step further when they introduced Olympic gold medalist and Raw superstar Gable Steveson before Lashley’s first match and the All Mighty went and fist-bumped him on camera.

But then later, MVP used his cane to hobble Big E and allow Lashley to pick up the win, so who really knows?

Again, nothing too pronounced, but all of it contributes to a changing narrative about Lashley, and it’ll be interesting to see how things evolve going forward.

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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.