6 Ups And Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 23)
DOWNS
6. Anyone Else Not Doing Anything For Mania?
Whats worse than the lazy booking tactic of having a wrestler beat a champion in a non-title match to earn a title shot? When three separate men beat the champion to set up a Fatal Four-Way match. Its almost maddening to think that 28 years ago, incoming WWE Hall of Famer Macho Man Randy Savage and Ricky The Dragon Steamboat engaged in arguably the best WrestleMania match ever over the Intercontinental Championship. Now, Bad News Barrett gets pinned almost weekly to set up future title matches. On Smackdown last week, it was R-Truth scoring a pinfall. On Monday, Dolph Ziggler got his non-title victory to lay claim to an Intercontinental Championship match. Dean Ambrose showed up with the title he stole and paraded around the ring before leaving with the strap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L23z8HBUKv0 Though nothing was said, it clearly looks to be leading to a four-way match at Mania, and while it could be a pretty good match if given 10-15 minutes, the fact that all three men got their shot by cleanly pinning Barrett just further devalues the title and shows the lack of thought being put into this match.
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.
