5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (25 Dec - Results & Review)

2. On Second Viewing…

It’s quite understandable why WWE chose to lead off it’s “Best of 2023” show with highlights of the finals of the World Heavyweight Championship, a title match between Seth Rollins and AJ Styles to crown a new world champ.

There was just one problem with this match: It wasn’t nearly as good as it originally appeared during Night of Champions. The clips shown revealed a bout that was at times sloppy and formulaic, and certainly not the kind of contest one would want to serve as the final battle to determine an inaugural world champion for your brand.

Oh sure, there wasn’t anything technically wrong with the match. But Rollins and Styles should be and are capable of delivering better action that would be something worth remembering at the end of the year.

Instead, by showing these clips, WWE shone a spotlight on a lackluster match that determined a champion for a title that at the time was largely derided as a consolation prize for everyone not named Roman Reigns. Huge fail here.

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Contributor
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.