6 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 2)

4. Paying Off A WWE Trope

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How often do we see those silly, meaningless blips where Raw comes back from commercial and they introduce some C-level celebrity or sports figure sitting at ringside? The person is suddenly there for their 15 seconds on camera, and then they disappear moments later, never to be seen at ringside again.

Monday, we got that again, with NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Michael Waltrip sitting ringside and celebrating to the camera. They then cut to Randy Orton backstage and then showed the Tony Nese/Aleister Black match. Then there was a Buddy Murphy backstage interview and an Andrade/Eric Young match.

Suddenly, R-Truth ran out to ringside, trying to escape his 24/7 Championship challengers. He hid at the barricade by Busch and Waltrip, who were still there, and they dutifully sent the wrestlers out of the arena. Truth went to hug Waltrip, who refused and unzipped his jacket, revealing a WWE referee shirt.

A quick rollup from Busch and we had a new 24/7 champ.

It’s not the first time a celebrity has won the title, but this at least paid off a longstanding WWE trope of having famous people ringside, so it felt out of the ordinary. Kudos.

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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.