6 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (Nov 23)

1. NOW There Are Stakes?!?

Adam Pearce Team Raw
WWE.com

One of the biggest gripes this column has had for a long time about Survivor Series is about the total lack of stakes surrounding the matches. Other than winning the battle for “brand supremacy,” there never is any real motivation for the wrestlers beyond pride.

Until now.

The Raw men’s team opened the show with Adam Pearce praising them for their clean sweep of Team SmackDown on Sunday night. Pearce then went so far as to say that they deserved a reward, possibly even a WWE Championship match. He then asked the wrestlers to make their case… which didn’t entirely go well for him.

So these five men argued with each other for weeks, coming to blows multiple times, and the one thing that probably could have unified them was withheld until after the PPV. WWE added “stakes” to its Survivor Series match after the fact.

This freaking company…

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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.