7 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 6)

4. Secondary Champion

Big E
WWE.com

It’s really hard to not feel like Big E is getting treated like a secondary world champion these days. It was bad enough he lost to Roman Reigns clean at Survivor Series – not even a hint of Uso interference.

But this feud with Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins, which should be a defining rivalry for him, is instead seeing him shunted to the background. Rollins has gotten to preen and vamp for the camera while E has been relegated to just wrestling. And yes, a fighting champion is a good thing, but when it looks like he’s a spoke in the wheel rather than the conductor himself, that’s not a good look for your world champion.

And really, this is a gut feeling watching WWE programming recently and wanting better for Big E. Then Raw opens with Rollins announcing a cage match between E and Owens – not the champ giving an impassioned speech about why he wanted a cage match with KO, but the smarmy villain laughing about his Day 1 opponents potentially injuring each other.

Just ask yourself this: Could you see Roman Reigns in this same spot right now? If your answer is “no,” then you understand where this “down” is coming from.

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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.