6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (7 August)

1. The Raw Special

Seth Rollins Finn Bálor
WWE.com

What, pray tell, is the Raw Special? Why it’s WWE’s series of favorite tropes, all happening sequentially.

You’ve got your show-opening promo, which gets interrupted, leading to a promo train, leading to a brawl, leading to a challenge for an impromptu main event.

In this case, it was Cody Rhodes celebrating his win over Brock Lesnar, when Seth Rollins came out to issue a challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship. But before Rhodes could answer, the Judgment Day came out to run their mouths. Finn Balor jumped Rollins, triggering a brawl, with Sami Zayn running down to ringside to even the odds.

And then Cody issued the ridiculously predictable challenge for a six-man tag, which magically occupied the main event.

Oh, and WWE threw in a “can they co-exist?” angle between Rollins and Rhodes, because why not? Just get all the tropes in there in one angle.

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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.