6 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Battleground 2016

3. Hypocrisy In 10 Seconds Flat

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Did anyone else snicker or burst out laughing when Mick Foley and Daniel Bryan (through Michael Cole) both talked about taking the focus of their shows away from authority figures and putting more control to wrestlers in their state of child.

This came just as both commissioners and GMs of Raw and SmackDown made their way to ringside before the main event to scout the talent and to see whether their brand would get a world title (Raw is currently without a world champ, but that obviously could change). While it made sense in the storyline, it felt like an omen, like the McMahons would get involved rather than be part of the background.

And just like that, WWE managed to make the first Shield triple threat match “all about the bosses” and the brands, rather than giving fans an explosive first official encounter between all three former members of the Shield.

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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.