7 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw XXX (23 Jan - Review)

5. Impromptu Matches

Sonya Deville
WWE.com

It’s a really good thing that we got two impromptu matches right in the middle of Raw to make up for the previously advertise steel cage match being called off.

That was snark.

Still, the middle third of Raw was dominated by two matches made on the fly: a six-man tag between Imperium and Seth Rollins & the Street Profits, and Bianca Belair versus Sonya Deville. This isn’t uncommon for Raw these days, but the fact that there actually was a major match announced – Becky Lynch versus Bayley in a steel cage – that never took place due to a Damage CTRL beatdown made this all the worse.

It’s proof that even when you’ve got a major show getting a lot of focus like Raw XXX, WWE can’t help itself to give in to its own tropes.

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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.