6 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Jan 17)

2. Burning A First Loss

If you were keeping score, Monday night was Damian Priest’s first pinfall loss in singles action on the main roster. That’s a span of nearly one full year. And it came in a championship contender’s match on free TV, with no stakes, after being duped by Kevin Owens.

And there you have it: WWE’s crappy booking in a nutshell.

This is not to say that KO’s ruse was bad – he faked a leg injury, drew Priest in and hit a Stunner for the win – but when you consider that Priest has been unbeaten (save for two DQs and a count-out) in 11-plus months, this felt like a throwaway loss that means little. They could have made it mean something, like, you know, for the title, but this was just dumb.

Now, we’ll give partial credit back next week if Priest mentions this and is pissed and looking for revenge for spoiling his unblemished record, but it’s hard to have hope for this company.

Also, why are we suddenly doing championship contender’s matches for a title that has been contested in open challenges for the past five months? It makes this match and Priest’s loss make even less sense.