6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Nov 14)

1. WWE: We Bury Babyfaces

There’s a way to sell an underdog babyface who takes an ass-kicking by a much bigger wrestler and never gives up, and thus gets over while the other guy goes over.

Mustafa Ali’s effort against Bobby Lashley was very clearly not that way.

Ali got murked last week by Lashley while trying to accept Seth Rollins’ open challenge for the United States Championship. He very understandably was pissed Monday night and stormed out to challenge the All Mighty during the opening segment. Lashley simply tossed him from the ring twice and accepted the match.

The match itself was Lashley battering Ali, with Mustafa landing maybe two offensive moves the entire contest. Sure, Ali kept pulling himself up, but with no chance of winning and no reason for fans to rally behind the superstar, how did the crowd react after Lashley delivered a vicious spinebuster?

“One more time!”

Oof. That’s not the reaction you want. But that’s par for the course with WWE, which seemingly has no idea still how to build and book true underdog babyfaces. It’s an epidemic with this company, and we see evidence like this all the time. The worst part is that it isn’t that hard to do this, especially with a natural babyface like Ali.