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

Ups...

7. Profane Sparring

Even as an Attitude Era fan, this writer isn’t necessarily endorsing a return to profanity-filled promos, but Monday’s exchange between “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and AJ Styles was a welcome departure from the norm.

While the PG nature of Raw isn’t a huge drawback, it does tone down some of the language sometimes to a level that isn’t believable. You’re supposed to think that two guys hate each other and want to tear each other apart, and then they hurl PG insults at each other. It’s jarring at times.

So when Austin picked up on the crowd taunting Styles and informed AJ that he had 18,000 people calling him an a**hole, it certainly woke things up. But then, Styles came back and noted that in Stone Cold’s old age, he’d become a real a**hole too.

Ouch.

Of course, AJ then showed how PG insults just don’t always work, as he next called Austin an old fart, which fell flat. But overall, the back-and-forth between Styles and Austin, with AJ mocking Stone Cold and repeatedly telling fans to shut up, worked pretty well.