7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (2 Dec - Results & Review)

1. One Small Detail…

Let’s get the one small problem with the entire Sami Zayn/Seth Rollins/CM Punk story out of the way.

The show-opening promo went incredibly well, weaving a bunch of separate threads together. The main event between Zayn and Rollins itself? Not gonna lie, but it left something to be desired. The match itself was fine, albeit abridged, but it suffered from a heavy dose of forced drama.

Just before the match, Jey Uso was attacked backstage, leading Sami to assume that it was Rollins. This made no sense in storyline as Seth already had “forgiven” Jey for helping Roman Reigns at Survivor Series because they’re related, turning his focus to Zayn. Even the tension between Sami and Seth leading up to the match wasn’t at a fever pitch. They were angry with each other, but it hadn’t boiled over, and nothing should have led Sami to assume Rollins would snap and attack Jey.

Then during the match, Zayn lost focus in a completely uncharacteristic way and grabbed a chair to wallop Rollins, leading to a ridiculously drawn-out standoff with Seth pleading his case as Sami stood over him with the chair. Zayn finally relented, and Rollins rolled him up for the win.

The entire escapade was melodrama for the sake of it, and betrayed Sami’s character. At the very least, if WWE was going to do this, Sami should’ve had a bit more pressure or reason to suspect and turn on Seth. This felt like an abrupt change because the story demanded it.