6 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Aug 14)

4. Points For Good Storytelling

Seth Rollins Dean Ambrose
WWE.com

One of the bigger complaints lodged periodically in this column is how poorly WWE tells stories (despite the company saying that’s what it does). Logic gaps, dropped angles, boring concepts, nonsensical twists and other problems have plagued WWE before.

But WWE deserves huge kudos for stretching out the Seth Rollins/Dean Ambrose reunion to maximum effect, whipping fans into a frenzy the past few weeks until the Boston crowd was coming unglued Monday night, just begging the two to fistbump to show their solidarity.

In the end, it wasn’t the two of them working out their differences, but Sheamus & Cesaro forcing them to team up to chase them off. And then fans got their reward for their patience.

Sometimes, not hotshotting things and giving fans what they want right away works. WWE didn’t stretch things out too far, and they didn’t get too ridiculous with the feigned fistbumps – though they were getting close.

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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.