6 Ups And 9 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 18)

5. NXT ‘Invades’ Raw

aleister black elias
WWE.com

If we didn’t know any better, Triple H just orchestrated a very polite, very proper invasion of WWE Raw Monday night.

The COO started Raw by announcing that four NXT superstars would make their Raw debuts that night, and each of them were successful in those matches. It’s unclear whether any of them are getting formally called up to the main roster – Ricochet and Aleister Black certainly could be elevated right now – but seeing them show up makes you wonder why.

Why now? Why like this? And why did Triple H just have them turn up and beat established wrestlers on Raw? Yes, this wasn’t an “invasion” as we know it, but it felt weird – and not all in a bad way – to see them show up without any huge purpose other than to compete.

Who knows at this point? But we’ll give it positive marks for now.

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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.