7 Ups And 10 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Dec 7)

5. A Sneaky Good Match

This was ready to be listed as a negative, but Dolph Ziggler and Kevin Owens worked to get the fans (and columnists) into their match by the end. When Tyler Breeze came out before the bout and took a seat in his VIP lounge, it seemed like it would only be a matter of minutes before he would interfere to cost Ziggler the match, thus setting up their rubber match for TLC and allowing Owens to win without hurting Dolph too much. As such, the opening minutes of the match €“ punctuated by KO chinlocks and headlocks €“ felt like a slow march to a DQ finish. Instead, the match built slowly until a quiet crowd got louder as the action picked up and the near-falls started in abundance. Owens threw Ziggler around like a ragdoll (most impressively a release German suplex that launched Dolph halfway across the ring), while Dolph fought back with a DDT on the floor and getting the better of dueling superkicks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpdHf_tF5o The best part is that Owens won clean with a Pop-Up Powerbomb that came as both men were spent and were just teeing off on each other. Sure, Ziggler lost, but if you€™re going to go down, a lengthy, hard-hitting match against the Intercontinental Champion isn€™t the worst way.