4 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 15)

by Scott Carlson

1. Smartly Laid-Out Gauntlet Match

Sheamus Drew McIntyre
WWE.com

Gauntlet matches in theory should be easy to lay out. But for some reason, sometimes you find yourself scratching your head at why they booked things a certain way.

But not WWE writers, who smartly booked Drew McIntyre to run roughshod over the field before falling to Sheamus in the final bout after being wounded in his three earlier matches. McIntyre survived AJ Styles, Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton, so there’s no real shame in losing to the Celtic Warrior.

The win also puts Sheamus in an enviable spot as the last to enter, which could be a huge advantage for him if a few superstars have been eliminated by that point. Now, McIntyre must enter the match earlier, and after he’s been put to the limit in this match before the PPV.

All in all, not too bad of a match, both in construction and execution.

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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.