4 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Raw (June 14)

2. A Decent Point, If Someone Would Make It

AJ Styles Drew McIntyre
WWE.com

If you can connect the dots yourself, there was a decent point made in the six-man main event on Monday night.

Sure, you could have reacted to Bobby Lashley eating a Claymore as the WWE Champion jobbing, but there was more at work here. During the past several weeks, Lashley has been preoccupied, spending time in his suite drinking champagne and partying with his harem of ladies. Meanwhile, McIntyre has been competing and staying focused on his opponent and the ultimate goal of reclaiming his world title.

So on Monday night, when AJ Styles inadvertently tagged in Lashley and the All-Mighty One was confused and lost focus, it was only natural that McIntyre closed in quickly with the Claymore for the pin. The challenger has actually been paying attention – and he took a match against AJ Styles to sharpen his skills in advance of Hell in a Cell, versus Lashley’s lounging.

From a storytelling standpoint, it also showed that Drew could get the upper hand on the champ after eating a series of losses recently. But yeah, if WWE wanted to question Lashley’s preparedness for Sunday’s PPV, this could be Exhibit A.

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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.