5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (Jan 16 - Review)

3. WWE’s Version Of Babyface Sympathy

Solo Sikoa Mustafa Ali
WWE.com

It’s a common refrain/criticism: WWE doesn’t know how to book babyfaces, especially sympathetic underdogs.

Take Mustafa Ali for example. Here’s a guy who is perfectly suited for that role and is more than talented enough to be your undersized, never-say-die face whose fight is twice is big as he is. And the announcers make sure to tell us that numerous times during his matches, including Monday’s bout against Solo Sikoa.

But what plays out in the ring is anything but. Monday’s opening match saw Solo dominate the entire contest, making it just an extended squash with Ali desperately trying to get sympathy out of the fans. His lone hope spot came via a Kevin Owens distraction – yep, a babyface needed a distraction to mount any semblance of a comeback – but it was snuffed out after about 10 seconds.

It's hard to ask fans to rally behind Ali when you not only know he’s going to lose, but he’s going to just be beaten down the entire match, land one offensive move, and then get squashed.

Konosuke Takeshita loses most of his high-profile matches in AEW, and yet fans are hanging on every moment of his matches. Why? Not because he’s better than Ali (Mustafa is tremendous), but he battles and competes and makes you believe he can win. Ali is booked to bump like a jobber, get his hope spot, lose, and then be grateful to get TV time.

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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.