4 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Aug 17)

5. Ziggler, Erik Brawl For All

At least, that’s what it felt like when Dolph Ziggler squared off against Erik of the Viking Raiders in Fight Club… er, Raw Underground.

Dolph’s amateur wrestling background paid dividends, and things didn’t look all that bad at first, but it was so obviously a worked shoot fight, right down to Ziggler using a sleeper hold, and then getting a thumb to the eye to really gain the upper hand and pick up the win.

Jeez, why didn’t he just use the Zig-Zag while he was at it?

And then for good measure, Ivar knocked Dolph into the crowd like a good sore loser.

For what it’s worth, can anyone tell us what the goal of fighting on Raw Underground is? Are there cash prizes for the winners? A title? None of that is likely, seeing how Shane McMahon will just randomly call for the end of a bout and then have someone else jump right in to brawl.

Three weeks and this just feels like it exists to eat up time. Give this purpose – say it’s an opportunity for underused wrestlers to really scrap, have a cash prize, say Shane’s building a stable of tough guys – or else this is gonna lose any charm it might have right now.