6 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 11th)
UPS
6. Two-Out-Of-Three Falls
This item gets a tacit thumbs-up for two reasons, one real, one speculative. First up, anytime the WWE Tag Team Championships are defended in a two-out-of-three falls match is an easy positive. It harkens back to the 80s and before, when titles were defended in such a manner, particularly the tag titles. Who can forget seeing the British Bulldogs and Hart Foundation defending the tag championships in those classic 2/3 falls matches on Saturday Nights Main Event? Now, if WWE is smart and really wants to get New Day over as a heel act and extend a bunch of sympathy toward Cesaro and Tyson Kidd then there is a really obvious yet still awesome move that will help: Have New Day use the Freebird Rule to switch competitors between falls. For example, have Big E and Kofi Kingston start the match. Lets say Kofi loses the first fall to Kidd. Xavier Woods then sneaks in behind Kidd as the second fall starts, subs in for Kofi and captures the second fall en route to winning the overall match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9si34pIIc Using the fact they have three wrestlers on their team (rather than treating Woods like a manager distracting on the outside) and having him compete like that would give New Day the competitive advantage of a fresh man mid-match and really tick off fans. Its obvious, but it doesnt mean it shouldnt happen.
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.
