7 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 15)

2. Rollins Stomps To Victory

seth rollins curbstomp
WWE.com

Finn Balor and Seth Rollins locked up Monday night in a Raw main event that was billed as a rematch of the first WWE Universal Championship match at SummerSlam 2016.

The match turned out to be a solid bout, even with all the extracurricular activity that took place in the waning moments, with Balor and Rollins trading offense and countering each other throughout. Balor even appeared to catch a pinfall by getting his knees up on a frogsplash and rolling Rollins up, but the ref waved off the pin.

The most notable thing about the match – beside Jason Jordan cheating to help Seth win – was Rollins bringing back the Curb Stomp (or Blackout) for the first time in nearly three years. Rollins hasn’t used that move since shortly after WrestleMania XXXI, switching first to a Pedigree, and then to a Ripcord Knee.

It wasn’t a terribly memorable ending to Raw, but at least we got a good main event and saw a killer finishing move return.

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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.