7 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (Sept 13)

4. Firing Up For The Main Event

Big E and the boys
WWE.com

Raw’s opening segment talk-a-thons have been misses for the most part in recent times, but Monday’s gabfest actually worked pretty well.

Maybe it was because they were discussing a match that already had been made – Randy Orton versus Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship – as opposed to talking to set up the night’s card. Or maybe it helped that everybody was firing on all cylinders, including Big E, who showed up with his Money in the Bank briefcase, threatening and promising to cash in on the winner of the match.

Everyone was sharp and to the point – the opening segment lasted about 10 minutes, which is short for WWE these days – which helped tremendously. It also didn’t hurt that you had the hook of E claiming he was going to cash in to take the title regardless of who won.

Throw in a sneak-attack RKO on Lashley and you have a pretty good opening segment.

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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.