7 Ups And 10 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (June 3)

4. Ignoring Reality

Lance Armstrong Matthew McConaughey Raw
WWE.com

What could you call it, irony or projecting?

WWE’s love affair for celebrities has led the company to do some pretty dumb things in the past, and Monday night was just another mark in that column. They came back from commercial and showed actor Matthew McConaughey… and cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Wait, check that… disgraced and admitted drug-user and cheat Lance Armstrong. Of course, Corey Graves simply referred to him as “one of the greatest cyclists of all time.”

In case you forgot (as WWE clearly must have), Armstrong had one of the greatest career arcs, returning from testicular cancer to win seven Tour de France races between 1998-2005, only for everything to come crashing down several years later. An investigation found that Armstrong was the ringleader of a sophisticated doping program that included the use and trafficking of performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong required his cycling teammates participate in the doping scheme, all to benefit him.

Despite being found guilty of “serial cheating” and being stripped of all his post-1998 cycling accomplishments and being banned from the sport, Armstrong was front and center Monday night for the family-friendly WWE program, heralded as one of the greatest of all time.

Wonder if he could have passed a Wellness test?

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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.