7 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 30)

5. Andrade Avoids New Champ Curse

andrade ricochet
WWE.com

We’ve seen it happen so many times in the past that it wouldn’t have been surprising if it happened Monday night.

Last week, Andrade won the United States Championship at a house show at Madison Square Garden. On Raw, he faced a jobber and was well on his way to demolishing him when Ricochet saved him from getting spiked on the concrete floor. This in turn set up a bout between Andrade and Ricochet.

Now, that made you think that Andrade could lose this nontitle match, giving rise to Ricochet having a claim at a US title shot. But instead of succumbing to WWE’s worst instincts, we saw Zelina Vega shove Ricochet off the top rope as he went for a 630 splash, allowing El Idolo to hit his hammerlock DDT for the win.

Yes, you can gripe about Ricochet losing, but this was the right call, and Vega physically getting involved, directly leading to the loss made it more palatable.

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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.