7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Aug 15)

5. Ciampa Gets Some Shine

Cedric Alexander Ciampa
WWE.com

A week after coming up short in his first big match on the main roster, Ciampa got to showcase his skills Monday night in a tag match alongside the Miz.

The duo battled Mustafa Ali & Cedric Alexander, trying to emerge from the purgatory that is Main Event. The cruiserweights got to show off a little and keep Miz and Ciampa off-balance for a while, even very nearly nabbing the win off a pinfall reversal.

But Ciampa would save the day on a blind tag, hitting a running knee on Ali while he was mid-450 splash, then punctuating it with a Fairy Tale Ending for the win. The old adage about maximizing your minutes definitely applied here, and this was pretty decent.

It makes you wish the tag titles weren’t welded around the waists of the Usos, where they seem to be stuck for as long as the storyline dictates because it would be great if guys like Ali & Alexander had a prayer of contending for tag titles.

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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.