5 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Christmas Eve)

3. Rousey Shelves Killer Instinct

ronda rousey natayla
WWE.com

It’s understandable that WWE wanted to tell the story of Ronda Rousey not wanting to hurt her friend and trainer Natalya, but having Rousey looking forlorn the entire match was the wrong call.

Rousey came into the match looking like she was guilty of something before the bell even rang. It continued throughout, even though most of the match was mat-based wrestling (and a pretty decent display, at that). Had they been throwing bombs, it might have worked better.

There was a story they were trying to tell here with Ronda, who still is a rookie, but it was overblown and looked silly instead of genuine. It wasn’t a huge sin, but it’s hard to believe a career combat athlete would go into a title match like that.

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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.