5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Elimination Chamber 2021

2. Runaway Champ

Nothing says “championship material” like a guy who loses to a champ multiple times, hits-and-runs, acts like a dweeb, uses a foreign object, and then pins another guy to win the title… and then flees the scene to avoid the now ex-champ.

Yeah, if all of that happened and it was a sniveling heel like Sami Zayn, it would make perfect sense. But when it’s the supposed babyface Riddle defeating dominant heel Bobby Lashley for the United States Championship, then it just exposes the stupidity of the writers.

Riddle and John Morrison were unable to get any offense against Lashley going. In fact, the All Mighty looked like he could stack the two opponents up and pin them both simultaneously. But Morrison got his hands on MVP’s crutch and tried to use it… only for Lashley to cinch in the Hurt Lock.

That’s when Riddle grabbed the crutch and walloped Lashley, knocking him out of the ring, hit Bro Derek on Morrison and pinned him to win the US title. And then Riddle fled the ring before having to have a confrontation with Lashley.

It might have meant something if Riddle had been cheated of the title (like Kevin Owens on SmackDown) or had epic fights and came up just short, but he had been battered in under 2 minutes on multiple occasions and left laying at ringside after matches. In short, Riddle looked nothing like championship material, and beating the other guy for the title just makes him look more flukish than anything.