7 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 21)

Ups…

7. Just Have Good Matches

How long had it been since Damian Priest just had a basic promo as United States Champion?

Priest dispatched with Shelton Benjamin in a non-title match, then grabbed the mic to observe that he’s a champion heading into WrestleMania season who has defeated plenty of people during his six-month reign, so he wanted to make sure he’s defending it against world champion-calibre athletes.

Cue Finn Balor to accept his challenge to a title match next week, which gives us what could be a really good match that puts Priest back on the path to just defending his title and building up more of a reputation for winning.

This is a really tentative “up” here, given that Priest is still saddled with this dumb split personality gimmick – he sneered throughout the match, but as soon as he won, he started smiling like a goof – but what got Damian over in the first place was just seeing him beat opponents left and right, so maybe this can right the ship.

Or maybe it’ll derail him for good, and he’ll snap against uber-babyface Finn and it’ll lead somewhere, because the current split personality deal is death.