5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (Jan 31)

Ups…

5. Hometown Wrestler Wins!

Angelo Dawkins Dolph Ziggler
WWE.com

This is so noteworthy, if only because WWE loves to make wrestlers lose in their hometowns. It’s kind of a right of passage for this company.

So when they announced Angelo Dawkins from Cincinnati and in singles action against Dolph Ziggler, you had to think they’d find a way for him to fall to a Zig Zag, just because. Never mind that the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals had just earned their way into the Super Bowl 24 hours earlier. WWE has a tradition to uphold.

But to the shock of many, Dawkins picked up the win in a short but spirited match that gave the hometown fans something to cheer about. It wasn’t anything special, and it’s probably not going to factor into some bigger angle down the road, but it was a nice thing to see.

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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.