4 Ups & 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Dec 14)

1. Stupid Ceremony, Hard Sell

The idea of an “ascension ceremony” is just dumb, sorry. Raising the title up is just a silly trope that doesn’t make any sense, unless you believe the title is going to stay suspended above the ring for the next six days.

However, the main event segment with AJ Styles and Drew McIntyre did provide a strong closing argument for their WWE Championship TLC match on Sunday. Styles noted that it might not be a true one-on-one match, triggering a melee with Miz and John Morrison and then Omos getting involved, leading to AJ battering McIntyre with a chair and ladder before putting the champ through a table.

It might have been a bit cliché, and we could see what was coming once the attack was on – that Styles would end up at the top of the ladder pulling the WWE title down – but it did the trick, so let’s give it some serious credit.