5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (7 Nov)

3. Hyping A Big-Time Tag Match

The Usos The New Day
WWE.com

It’s not often that WWE has a genuinely big tag match between two full-time tag teams that they can really promote, but when you’re talking New Day and the Usos, that’s basically WWE tag team royalty.

Sure, the teams have faced off countless times before, traded tag titles back and forth like kids with cards, but this time, there’s a unique twist to it: the Usos are trying to break New Day’s company record for a longest tag title reign.

That hook was put into full focus in the opening promo on Raw, all to hype a tag title match for SmackDown. The hard sell included both teams putting each other over while negging them, including a long commentary on pressure and how each team has endured different forms of it.

The segment was solid, until Matt Riddle showed up and acted like a goof, but even that couldn’t derail what was an opening that made Friday’s tag match feel that much more important.

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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.