6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (30 Sept - Results & Review)

2. Woods’ Slow Descent Continues

In recent weeks, Xavier Woods has grown more frustrated by his situation and inability to escape that plight. He’s declared that something must change – and it looks like he’s made a decision about how to accomplish that change.

Monday night, Woods defeated Rey Mysterio in singles action via rollup, but it came in a pretty underhanded way. Xavier was struggling to hoist Rey up for a powerslam and inadvertently yanked Mysterio’s mask off, leading to Rey immediately covering his face, prioritizing his identity over the match, which allowed Woods to get the rollup win.

In the strictest sense, Woods was in the right – the match was ongoing, and it’s not his fault that Rey valued covering his face over trying to win the contest - but an honorable babyface would never have taken advantage. Woods professed to Kofi Kingston that he never would have done that on purpose, and all seemed back to equilibrium. Until…

During Kofi’s match against Chad Gable, Woods interfered, trying to trip Gable up, which actually ended up helping Gable avoid a Trouble in Paradise and allowed him to put Kingston away with a Chaos Theory. Xavier never would have tried to cheat like that before, but he saw how a shortcut helped him earlier in the night and tried to do the same for Kofi.

It’s a fascinating tale of a disgruntled wrestler giving in to temptation and venturing down a darker path, which is so much better than a random heel turn followed up by a “I don’t owe you an explanation” retort. Instead, everyone can see why Woods is short-circuiting, and the question is whether he can be saved, or if he truly is going to turn further down that path.