7 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Dec 19)

by Scott Carlson

1. Strowman Climbs The Food Chain

braun strowman
WWE.com

While the method that led to this (Sami Zayn’s absence) was a negative, Braun Strowman did something that put his name on the map Monday night.

The “mountain of a man” promised GM Mick Foley that he was going to take business into his own hands, which had to worry fans when the next match was a cruiserweight battle, because all many probably could envision was Braun demolishing them.

Instead, Strowman ran out during the main event (after demolishing Sin Cara and Titus O’Neil earlier), laying waste to Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins (with Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens feeding Reigns into the ring to Braun). Just like that, Strowman went from a middling feud with Zayn over whether he could last 10 minutes in a match to assaulting two main-event wrestlers and inserting himself into the conversation.

This might not pan out long term, but considering the dearth of monster heels at the top of the roster, this is far better than nothing.

Advertisement
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.