5 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Raw (May 4)

2. And Back To Square One

Cedric Alexander
WWE.com

Just when it seemed like WWE was going to give Ricochet & Cedric Alexander a push as a tag team, the writers threw a bump in the road for them yet again.

The duo has been getting shined up in video packages as a hot, athletic tag team, which is a welcome departure from both of them losing a bunch of singles matches. But after racking off wins in three of their last four matches, they lost a return bout against NXT jobbers Shane Thorne & Brendan Vink.

Yes, you read that correctly. WWE has spent the past couple weeks talking up Alexander & Ricochet as an up-and-coming tag team (with only five matches as a duo under their belts), only to have a no-name duo they already defeated beat them in short order Monday night.

It might have something to do with Vink being a big lumbering guy (Vince McMahon loves his big guys, and Ricochet and Alexander are small), but his “running” big boot (more like a stumble forward) looked embarrassing as a finisher compared to Drew McIntyre’s Claymore.

Any way you slice it, this was bad. MVP might have endorsed them, but it’s not like he was ringside to cause a distraction or anything. He gave a lame pep talk and the winless Aussies upset the newly packaged tag team. Way to go WWE.

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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.