5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 24)

3. Rollins’ Heel Work Elevates Ali

Give Seth Rollins a fair amount of credit for his work in putting Mustafa Ali down while still respecting him Monday night.

Ali is Rollins’ next likely challenger for the United States Championship, and he chased Seth off at the end of Raw last week. Rollins repaid the favor by doing commentary during Mustafa’s match against Austin Theory. Throughout the bout, he was cheerleading for Theory, even noting that he was “a former disciple of mine.” He got upset when Ali went on offense, not wanting him to pick up a big win, and basically acknowledging that Ali was resilient every time he came back.

Rollins kept leaping out of his seat toward the end, and he finally acted on his inclinations and provided a big distraction to allow Theory to get the win. Afterwards, his attack and trash-talk furthered the budding feud with Ali, punctuated by Mustafa’s retaliation on the ramp, showing that he couldn’t be held down and was indeed a threat to Seth.