6 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 1)

4. Uncrowned Champion

Remember how the referee’s decision is supposed to be final? Well, WWE doesn’t want you to remember that.

We got a ref’s decision Monday night to award the United States Championship to AJ Styles after he hit a Phenomenal Forearm on Ricochet just minutes into the match. However, the champ got his foot under the ropes, leading to some confusion as a second referee came out to confer.

Cut to commercial and return, and we restarted the match, with no title change. The first ref was apparently informed of his mistake and overruled himself, leading to the bout continuing, and Ricochet pulled out a rollup a few minutes later for the successful title defense.

But that “loss” was just stupid. It was a visual (and somewhat very real) pinfall loss for Ricochet, who was saved only by a referee running out and calling the mistake out. Worse, this wasn’t done to advance a greater storyline; it was done because of WWE’s edict for no action taking places during commercial.

This rule has got to go. We’ve got a guy essentially winning the US title and then losing it on a technicality (via restart), only to lose the match. This one was unforgivable, as it helped no one. Ricochet looked weak being pinned and saved by a referee.

Just a dumb situation all the way around.