4 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 4)

8. Burying Dana

Dana Brooke Shayna Baszler
WWE.com

It’s not entirely uncommon for announcers to bury talent, especially jobbers, but there was something especially brutal about Corey Graves’ rant.

Graves went off on Dana Brooke during her short match against Shayna Baszler, sounding like he was directly channelling an exasperated Vince McMahon. Corey said that he’s all for giving a wrestler time to develop, but sometimes it’s been long enough and it’s time to cut your losses. He noted that Dana “has not accomplished much of anything” in WWE.

Byron Saxton leapt to her defence (a bad sign of its own) and Brooke immediately got caught in the Kirafuda Clutch and tapped out, losing yet another match.

Look, if WWE has completely soured on Brooke and don’t think she’s worth the time or investment any longer, then cut her loose. Putting her on TV so an announcer can serve as an avatar for the company’s owner and bury her is just mean-spirited.

And if that wasn’t what happened here, it was just over the top from Graves.

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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.