6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (Aug 1)

2. Wrestling On The Marquee

Ciampa Chad Gable
WWE.com

You don’t have to look hard to see the changes that Triple H already has brought to Raw since assuming control. Hell, you could do an entire article listing the changes on this episode alone.

But consider…

There were no 24/7 Championship hijinks for the second week in a row. Mustafa Ali and Ciampa were inserted into the United States Championship picture rather than guys like Theory, Ezekiel or Omos. Ciampa became #1 contender for the US title by winning two matches. The women’s division was injected with new life and new rivalries. Matches on Raw were longer and more involved. There weren’t any wacky backstage segments. Titles were treated as big deals that wrestlers want to possess.

We’ll definitely still need comic relief and will get to see some goofiness at times, but this was a different-looking show, even if the presentation was largely the same and most of the players were as well.

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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.