5 Ups And 3 Downs From WWE RAW (Best Of 2022)

4. Putting Over Everything

The Usos New Day
WWE.com

One of the advantages of being a well-established, nearly bulletproof act is that you can use your standing to make others look good, whether in the ring or on the mic.

New Day is one such act, and Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods used a sit-down interview to strongly put over Pretty Deadly, whom they defeated for the NXT Tag Team Championship, as well as the entire NXT tag division. That little bit of promotion alone justified giving New Day the tag titles. You have one of your most celebrated tag teams in company history putting over your developmental brand, which in turn might send a few thousand viewers to tune in on Tuesday nights.

Kofi & Woods also gave their props to the Usos as their archrivals, calling it “like a sibling rivalry,” which is pretty accurate as their careers have meandered and interwoven.

Just a really solid interview segment that showed their worth extends well beyond the ring and selling merch.

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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.