5 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw After WrestleMania (April 4)

1. Championship Contender’s Matches Completely Pointless

Sasha Banks Naomi
WWE.com

Leave it to WWE to take one of their dumber tropes and render it completely useless and pointless in a throwaway backstage segment.

We’ve seen WWE hold these “championship contender’s matches” repeatedly on TV. They really are just non-title matches involving champions, but it’s a way for the announcers to create a hook – if the opponent can manage to win, then they’ll possibly be in the conversation to someday soon maybe have a title opportunity.

We got one of those matches between new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Sasha Banks & Naomi and Liv Morgan & Rhea Ripley. The match was fairly standard, with the champs winning by pinning Morgan. Ripley was upset at this and quietly walked off.

Later, Liv caught up with Rhea, who explained that she talked to the officials and got their team a tag title match for next week. Despite losing the championship contender’s match – which would heavily imply that they were not contenders – Morgan & Ripley now get a title match.

So why have these matches? Why have any matches? Apparently, you can just walk into Adam Pearce’s office and just ask for a title match and you’ll get it. Hell, Vince McMahon already told the audience that superstars are stupid for jumping through hoops.

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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.