7 Ups & 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (10 Jan)

4. Yet Another Beatdown Of The Hurt Business

Bobby Lashley Cedric Alexander
WWE.com

You get the feeling WWE brass is treating some parts of the Empty Arena Era as something that never happened, so they’re just blatantly redoing angles from that period.

In early 2021, Bobby Lashley unceremoniously turfed Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander, bouncing them from the Hurt Business in embarrassing fashion. The two former running buddies were physically tossed from the group and treated like jobbers for the longest time after being part of one of the rare bright spots of late 2020.

Then the duo inexplicably showed up for Lashley’s feud with Goldberg and remained in the background, very rarely sharing the screen with Lashley, but keeping their status tied to the Hurt Business.

Fast-forward to Monday night, and Lashley once again turfed Shelton and Cedric, seemingly for no reason, and then when they tried to attack him in the ring, Lashley trounced them in seconds, making them look like redshirt security guys getting mowed down. It was just another beating of two talented wrestlers for the sake of doing it – there was no gain for Lashley, who already is insanely over here.

But hey, God forbid we think anything of those guys. Can’t wait until they’re in the next round of releases because “creative doesn’t have anything” for them.

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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.