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

1. We’re Gonna Get King Corbin, Aren’t We?

king baron corbin
WWE.com

Dear WWE fans: Stop booing Baron Corbin during his matches and promos. Vince McMahon thinks it means we care and dislike him as a top heel. He doesn’t understand that we just hate him being on our TV and wouldn’t care if he disappeared for good.

Corbin stole the pinfall in the triple threat between he, Samoa Joe and Ricochet, letting the One and Only do the work before tossing him and pinning Joe. Baron now moves onto the King of the Ring finals against either Elias or Chad Gable. Given the dynamics, this likely sets up either Gable – an underused but immensely talented underdog – or Corbin to be the next king of WWE.

If Corbin wins, it’ll be yet another accolade for a guy fans simply do not care about. He won Money in the Bank and failed at his cash-in. He was the centerpiece of Raw for a good portion of 2018 when ratings absolutely tanked. He was programmed into a Universal Championship feud this summer that was overwhelmingly panned.

But hey, let’s have him advance to the KOTR finals, why not? Maybe if he wins this accolade, fans will accept him as a top guy.

Of course, if this is setting up Gable to overcome, it will slightly redeem things, but this tournament really felt like it could have been a launching pad for someone like Ricochet, and now we’re looking at a much more underwhelming finals.

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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.