6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Sept. 12)

3. Impromptu Opener

Matt Riddle finn Balor
WWE

What was the opening match for Raw going to be if we didn’t have the impromptu conflict between Matt Riddle and Finn Balor? If not for that confrontation, would there just have been a 15-minute gap in programming?

Those are serious questions. We’ve given a pass to WWE for years now for stuff like this, but it’s time to start expecting a bit better from them. Seth Rollins opened Raw, and was interrupted by Riddle, who then was confronted by Judgment Day. This led to the Balor/Riddle match, which clearly wasn’t planned.

So what was supposed to be the opening match? WWE loves this booking crutch, and while you can get away with it once in a while, they do it so often that we have to knock them for it here. You can’t keep pretending to book on the fly and expect to have it work every time.

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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.