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

Downs...

5. From Outta Nowhere

Sonya Deville Sasha Banks
WWE.com

This is in no way a knock on WWE for having a rookie topple a four-time women’s champion.

However, the way in which Sonya Deville knocked off Sasha Banks was terrible. Deville has looked sharp in her final NXT matches (see her title match against Ember Moon or series with Ruby Riott), but she was relegated to a short, basic match with the Boss. And then that match ended suddenly when Deville hit a solid round kick to Banks as she jumped off the middle turnbuckle.

It was a stunner, not because Sonya won, but because she basically hit a transitional move to take control and got a three count. Deville has some good strikes, and her offense looks good, so why not have her win with her finisher or use something a little more devastating?

A kick to the midsection like that shouldn’t be ending matches in 2018. It just felt like someone yelled, “Go home!” in the referee’s ear suddenly.

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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.