6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (22 August - Results & Review)

4. That’s How To Kill Time

Sami Zayn
WWE.com

With a three-hour show, WWE clearly needs to pad things out to fill Raw programming, whether it’s longer matches, video packages of the latest Bloodline saga, or backstage segments ad nauseum.

But they found a great way to eat up nearly 10 minutes of time to open Raw Monday night: Have Sami Zayn open the show in Quebec City, a three-hour drive from his billed hometown of Montreal.

The crowd erupted for nearly 10 minutes straight, cheering him on, serenading him with “Ole!” and giving Zayn goosebumps. It was the sort of thing where you would get bored if this happened every week with a hometown hero, but it was really fun to watch, especially knowing when they were in Montreal in February, Sami had a similar fan reaction while challenging for Roman Reigns’ Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.

This was just a fun few minutes, and far better than some painful dialogue that WWE could have scripted to kill 10 minutes.

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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.