6 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Jan 6)

2. A Hugely Botched Ending

Andrade Rey Mysterio
WWE.com

While it’s unclear who was to blame, there’s no question that the ending of the Andrade/Rey Mysterio match was botched in epic fashion.

Rey went for a seated senton off the apron, but Andrade caught him and tossed him backward, inadvertently launching Mysterio onto Zelina Vega. Rey looked despondent, and Andrade capitalized, tossing him into the stairs and back inside for the Hammerlock DDT – only for the referee to interfere.

Referee John Cone stopped Andrade and Rey collapsed, making you think he was hurt at first. But then Cone was clearly heard on camera telling Mysterio to roll outside and check on Vega. Then Cone marshalled Andrade back into the ring and made him wait there while Rey stood over Zelina and crawled back into the ring, where Andrade immediately hit a DDT for the win.

It looked worse than it sounded. This really, really was bad, as there was no discernible reason for the ref to stop Andrade from hitting his finishing move… other than to toss in the gaga of Rey checking on Vega.

It’s a shame too, because the match was going really well otherwise and was looking like an easy “up.”

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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.