7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (15 May - Review)

UPS…

7. Mustafa Is Positively Heading To Night Of Champions

Mustafa Ali
WWE.com

Sorry for those of you who have given up on WWE doing right by Mustafa Ali, but this writer just wants to believe in things going right for him.

That doesn’t mean there’s a scintilla of a chance that Ali defeats Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions, but seeing Mustafa win the battle royal Monday night (and not by hiding on the outside and sneaking back into the ring at the end) and then standing up to the Ring General was a nice couple moments.

Ali has toiled away and fought against the WWE machine for years, being dealt bad creative, bad gimmicks, and dropped storylines for what seems like forever. Even if he’s just Gunther’s first sacrificial lamb on Raw, if he at least gets time to shine at NOC, that in and of itself could be a victory for him.

After all, we’ve got to start somewhere and set the bar low enough to crawl over it. But you’ve got to also reserve the right to sour on this quickly.

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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.