6 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Raw Superstar Shakeup

4. Andrade Triumphs

Raw Andrade Finn Balor
WWE.com

You really shouldn’t read too much into one match, but after a middling year on SmackDown, Andrade came over to Raw Monday night and toppled Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor.

Normally, defeating a champ in a non-title match would be a “down,” but this is an exception for a couple reasons. Andrade was debuting on Raw, so losing right of the gate would have been horribly stupid. Also, Balor didn’t lose clean, as Zelina Vega interfered a couple times, lastly hitting a rana off the apron that led directly to Andrade hitting the hammerlock DDT for the win.

Also, this was a pretty good little match, with the ending sequence of both men countering each other’s finishers looking really good. Vega’s interference gives Finn (who also was slowed by a knee injury) a reason to seek retribution, and Andrade debuts by beating someone other than Apollo Crews.

No offense to Apollo, but beating him wouldn’t have had the same impact as toppling the IC champ.

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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.