6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Results & Review - 8 Jan)

1. Rock’s Trash Is Rollins’ Challenger

One of the criticisms that dominated WWE during Vince McMahon’s latter years at the helm was the week-by-week booking with no consistency or planning. A wrestler could job out one week and suddenly be a title challenger the next. And vice-versa.

That haphazard booking dissolved under Triple H’s stewardship, giving fans more consistent, logical plotting for matches. It might seem boring or predictable at times, but having a decent idea of how a story is supposed to go isn’t a negative.

Monday night, however, fans got to meet Seth Rollins’ latest challenger for the World Heavyweight Championship… Jinder Mahal. The same Jinder who was embarrassed by The Rock in his surprise return to Raw last week.

For fans watching at home, Mahal returned after a long absence, immediately got overshadowed and owned by Rock with great ease. A week later, he emerges as Rollins’ next challenger for his world title. And fans are supposed to buy the eviscerated Jinder as anything more than a warm body? He should be introduced as “already in the ring to my left…” and squashed in 30 seconds if there’s any logic.

If WWE knew Mahal was going to be challenging Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship, why send him out there to get humiliated a week earlier by a 51-year-old who looked blown up delivering his promo? Sorry, low blow – Rock is generally awesome. But the point remains: This was poor planning to have a world title contender put in that position, poor planning that WWE seemingly had gotten past.