5 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Mar 2)

Ups…

5. Heyman Runs Down McIntyre

Paul Heyman Brock Lesnar
WWE.com

When you get down to it, you’re hard-pressed to find someone better at hyping a match than Paul Heyman. And no, we’re not just talking about his “That’s not a prediction, that’s a spoiler” line.

Heyman can find ways to manipulate the crowd into caring about something or someone they didn’t even realize they cared about, just by running his mouth. Monday, Paul E. did just that, calling the upcoming WrestleMania 36 main event of Brock Lesnar versus Drew McIntyre “a sham.”

He said that WWE wants to sell fans on McIntyre, but he’s really just a “hyped-up fraud.” Heyman dutifully recalled the Royal Rumble, then asked how eliminating Brock from the match is evidence that Drew can pin or submit Lesnar. (Spoiler: It’s not.) The antagonism worked, because fans were sufficiently riled, and when McIntyre came out to confront Brock and Paul, the audience exploded.

That’s some magic power Heyman’s got there.

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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.