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

5. Is Dom A Boy Or A Man?

Dominik Mysterio The Judgment Day
WWE.com

The question harkens back to Rhea Ripley talking up Dominik Mysterio before he accepted AJ Styles’ challenge for a match Monday night.

Mysterio stepped up, and despite being overmatched at nearly every turn, managed to get the win after the whole of Judgment Day interfered on his behalf, with Ripley grabbing Styles’ leg to allow Dominik to get a rollup pin.

At this point, it seems pretty clear that even WWE is in on the gag that Dominik isn’t some second-generation wrestling prodigy. He’s closer to David Flair than Charlotte Flair. But fans love to hate on him, so they’re feeding us with Dominik vamping for the camera, being led by the nose by Rhea (which is fantastic), and picking up a win against a world-class athlete like Styles due to excessive cheating from others.

As long as WWE doesn’t start thinking that Dom is ready to carry his father’s legacy and be the next great luchador, then this works pretty nicely as a running gag.

Advertisement
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.