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

3. Building A Strong Champion

Damian Priest Jeff Hardy
WWE.com

Who would’ve thought that if you have a wrestler win matches and look strong, win a title and then keep winning, they would be accepted by the fans?

Damian Priest is a rare success story on Raw in 2021, as he’s won the United States Championship and continues to defend it, including here, when he defeated Jeff Hardy in a pretty decent little TV match.

Wen everyone was lamenting how Hardy was getting beat in 2 minutes regularly earlier this year, it wasn’t that people thought he should be holding a world title, but he certainly could fill a role and still have good matches rather than being a jobber. Monday’s bout against Priest was exactly that, with both men having an early stalemate before moving through a decent contest that saw Damian reverse a Twist of Fate attempt into the Reckoning for the win.

Afterwards, Sheamus attacked both men and laid out Hardy (drawing huge boos) before Priest turned the tide and booted the Celtic Warrior out of the ring. Yes, it’s a rematch we’ve already seen, but one more time shouldn’t hurt if Damian can put Sheamus in his rearview mirror afterwards.

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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.