5 Ups & 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 10)

1. Grizzled Veteran Beats Overconfident Youth

The easy answer to “Who should win a match between Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin” would be Prime Alexander, as he’s on the upswing of his career, while Benjamin is clearly in a different place on his journey.

But we got the opposite result on Monday night, and it worked nicely. Cedric talked a bunch of trash throughout the match, continuing his tirade against his former tag partner from last week. He was in control for much of the match, taunting Shelton to “get up” repeatedly, until Benjamin surprised him with a T-Bone suplex for the pin.

For once, the announcers did a good job conveying that Shelton’s experience overcame Cedric’s youthful exuberance, which is exactly what happened here, and was a good story to tell. Maybe Alexander will find a mentor who will take him in and focus his efforts. Or maybe he’ll figure it out himself.

Let’s just hope this isn’t shuffling Alexander back down to Main Event until “creative doesn’t have anything for you.”