4 Ups And 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 14th)
2. UP - Cold War Heats Up Crowd
No matter how much times have changed, sometimes things stay the same. In this case, the old standard trope of a foreign (often Russian) wrestler insulting America leads crowds to become rabid in their hatred of the heel and their support for a defender of freedom. Even in 2014, Rusev and Lana have managed to tap into that age-old angle, consistently riling up audiences for months. In turn, fans have rallied behind Jack Swagger, Mark Henry and now Big Show in their quest to topple the Bulgarian Brute. Monday night, the fans in Atlanta were engaged, but certainly not the rowdy bunch that filled Brooklyns Barclays Center. That is, until Rusev and Lana started their anti-America diatribe. The duo did their job, and then Big Show did yeomans work in playing Rocky Balboa to Rusevs Ivan Drago despite being by far the bigger, stronger wrestler. Whatever they did worked, because the crowd came unglued throughout the entire match, chanting and trying to rally Show. Sure, Big Show probably wont be successful in the end, but that wont stop fans from rooting for someone to put Rusev down for the count.
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.
