7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 17)

2. Break Stuff

Brock Lesnar bobby Lashley
WWE.com

Breaking the norm can be a really good thing, especially when you’re talking about a 29-year-old TV show that has opened with an in-ring promo nearly every week for the past generation.

But rather than opening with a match, the curtain rose on Raw Monday night with Bobby Lashley mid-promo calling out Brock Lesnar for costing him his United States Championship last week. And that’s when the talking stopped.

Brock came out, and after a brief staredown, they charged at each other like bulls and battered the other all around ringside, claiming the barricade and announce desk as casualties. About 20-plus security personnel and wrestlers finally were able to separate the two.

But man, what a hot opening between two powerhouses who have some unfinished business. It got the juices flowing for a three-hour episode and made this impending match more of a must-see than it already was.

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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.