7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (9 Sept - Results & Review)

4. Balor Makes His Case

It’s been said that a heel character works best when they not only believe what they’re saying, but their reasons for doing dastardly things are believable as well.

Take Finn Balor and the rest of the new Judgment Day. The group excommunicated Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley because they were acting like the leaders of the group, bossing the rest of the crew around and taking them for granted. Obviously, there were reasons for that, but there was some truth to all of it.

Monday, Balor tacked onto his case against Priest, recounting how he helped Damian retain his World Heavyweight Championship on multiple occasions, but Finn should have been world champion himself even sooner… if not for Priest. And there’s a good amount of truth in this, dating back to Balor’s rivalry with Seth Rollins last year, where he lost two World Heavyweight Championship matches in part due to Priest wielding his Money in the Bank briefcase.

Finn made his argument to Priest, which then gave way to a Judgment Day beatdown on Damian, and then on Rhea when she tried to make the save, leaving the Terror Twins laid out before Jey Uso could intervene.

Tying in that year-old grudge was a smart move, giving Finn some justification for his actions and their feud a bit more depth. The Judgment Day assault was a reminder of how they operate and to put the Terror Twins on the defensive, which is probably the best play for the undersized Morgan and Balor.