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

5. Weaving Stories Together

The Judgment Day
WWE.com

WWE did a nice job weaving the Seth Rollins opening promo with Matt Riddle attacking him, which then gave way to Judgment Day offering him a spot.

What made this work was some decent storytelling (imagine that!) from the announcers noting that Judgment Day only seems to show up when superstars are emotionally conflicted and drained, thus vulnerable to their entreaties. It made them look opportunistic, and it gave them a reason to be there.

This set up the Riddle/Finn Balor match, which itself was pretty good, and then Rollins returned after being attacked by the Original Bro to repay him and cost him the match.

All of it is tied together. Maybe it wasn’t the prettiest package, but it made sense, and it actually gave Judgment Day a possible calling card of showing up whenever a wrestler is down on their luck.

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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.