7 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 9)

2. Universal Championship Match Takes Backseat

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WWE.com

On one hand, it’s refreshing that we didn’t get the last-minute tension or dissension between Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman before they have to defend their Raw Tag Team Championship and square off for the WWE Universal Championship on the same night.

But on the other hand, their feud really looked secondary Monday night, didn’t it? The focus was more on “Stone Cold” Steve Austin or even Cedric Alexander. And while those aren’t negatives by themselves, shouldn’t your top title feud be a focal point of the go-home Raw?

Rollins and Strowman led off Raw with the contract signing, but there was more back-and-forth between AJ Styles and Austin than the Raw tag champs. That’s just a weird dynamic.

If you tuned in wondering whether you should be invested in the Universal Championship match, the answer was a resounding “eh.”

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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.