6 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (October 15)

4. Going Back To The Well

Trish Stratus Lita
WWE.com

This writer was tempted to give an “up” to Lita and Trish Stratus for coming to Philadelphia and aping former Sixer Allan Iverson’s infamous 2002 speech, where he used the word “practice” more than 20 times in a two-minute rant.

The problem? WWE went to this well just two years ago, with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson mimicking the “practice” rant. Granted, they weren’t in Philly (Raw was in Detroit).

But still, this was the best WWE could pull: Have two Hall-of-Famers who haven’t wrestled regularly in 12 years make a 16-year-old reference that only the live audience would really get.

Long-retired performers making dated references is not a way to sell this match. It might have gotten a reaction from the Philly crowd (and this writer initially), but ultimately, it wasn’t a great sell for the tag match.

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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.