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

Ups…

5. Alphas Give Judgment Day A Run

Chad Gable Dominik Mysterio
WWE.com

Elias might have thought he was going to have a tune-up match Monday night, but it was the Judgment Day that had a bit of a warmup match for next week when they tangled with Alpha Academy ahead of their tag title bout at Raw 30.

Chad Gable did a masterful job of being just smarmy enough as a heel but still entertaining as he outfoxed Dominik Mysterio and tried to best Damian Priest. But it was Otis who stole the show in the fans’ eyes, with the crowd actually chanting for him, and he obliged with some big man offense and a Caterpillar.

The closing moments were white-hot, with Priest hitting Otis with an avalanche South of Heaven, Gable nailing a Chaos Theory German suplex on Priest and then Chad cinching an anklelock on Dom until the rest of Judgment Day could save him. Once again, it was a nearly out-of-it Mysterio picking up the pin after a Priest South of Heaven.

All told, this was just good fun with solid action and a nice in-ring story with Dominik continuing to benefit from his stablemates’ work.

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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.