5 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 23)

4. Cruiserweights Burn Through Match

cruiserweight kicks
WWE.com

A 10-man match that flies by in a handful of minutes can be electrifying, but often it’s a rushed mess.

That’s closer to what we got Monday night in the main-event bout on Raw, with Enzo’s Zo Train squaring off against Rich Swann, Gran Metalik, Cedric Alexander, Kalisto and Mustafa Ali. Most of the guys got a chance to briefly shine, but there just wasn’t enough time for anyone to really stand out.

It’s not that a speedy match is a negative on its own. It’s that it was another quick-hit appearance for the cruiserweights (though Drew Gulak’s pre-match promo was pretty good) that didn’t offend anyone and really was just there to give Kalisto a pinfall in-between his loss to Enzo Amore at the PPV and his rematch on 205 Live on Tuesday.

A smaller match with more time might have worked better to let more guys shine.

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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.