5 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (June 4)

2. Getting Straight To It

seth rollins elias samson
WWE.com

Last week, Elias broke a guitar over Seth Rollins’ back as punishment for interrupting his performance.

Raw opened Monday with Elias in the ring, dedicating a song to Rollins, who interrupted again, leading to a standoff between the two. Elias had his trusty guitar, but Seth grabbed a steel chair, which gave him the upper hand.

That quickly broke down, with Jinder Mahal and Roman Reigns getting involved, and that led to a tag match, which ended with Elias pinning an injured Rollins. It was a very sequential series that made Elias into a threat for Rollins Intercontinental Championship and gave him another one up on the Kingslayer.

Kudos for not wasting time with a lengthy opening and also moving straight into action. And having Elias get a win might seem to be reverse foreshadowing (that Rollins will win at the PPV), but he actually needed the win to establish himself a bit.

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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.