6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (29 Aug)

2. Listless AJ And Dolph

Dolph Ziggler AJ Styles
WWE.com

Have two former world champions ever felt more like spare parts than AJ Styles and Dolph Ziggler did to open Raw?

The duo took on The Judgment Day and fell to them in a sometimes-sloppy match. As the opening bout, you’d think it would be a white-hot match, but instead, it was tepid at times. Afterwards, Styles and Ziggler disappeared as The Judgment Day celebrated and then waited for Edge to make his way to the ring.

Just like that, Styles, who has a pretty good history of feuding with The Judgment Day, was a non-factor and melted into the background, like he didn’t exist. And Ziggler felt like he was there to take the pinfall.

When you can picture replacing them with two potted plants and the result being the same, that’s when you know that they’re superfluous to the situation. That’s especially sad for AJ, who’s still one of the bigger names on Raw.

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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.