6 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 14)

4. Banks, Rousey Ramp Up The Aggression

sasha banks ronda rousey
WWE.com

Mutual respect feuds only work in certain situations, so it’s good that the writers decided to create some conflict between Sasha Banks and Ronda Rousey in advance of their title match at Royal Rumble.

It’s even better that despite the trope of booking future opponents as tag team partners, they didn’t give in and have them accidentally hit each other or something like that. Instead, they won cleanly, and then the post-match interview happened.

Rousey kept trying to throw compliments Sasha’s way, but they were backhanded as hell, and Banks didn’t let them slide. She challenged Ronda, who (in character) grew flustered at her words landing wrong. Sasha didn’t back down at any point, while Rousey was either subtly putting down her challenger or choosing her words poorly.

Nicely done on this one, with Banks showing more fire than she has in a long, long time.

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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.