7 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Raw (30 Oct - Review & Results)

DOWNS…

5. An Unconvincing KO Shot

After weeks of backstage segments fighting to get her shot in the ring, Xia Li finally had her moment Monday night, and she immediately put Candice LeRae’s lights out.

Xia delivered a kick to the back of LeRae’s head and dropping Candice, who appeared to be knocked out. The referee checked on her, and when she stumbled and collapsed into the corner, the ref called off the match.

It’s pretty clear that WWE was trying to put over Li’s strikes as being capable of KO’ing an opponent, but the kick itself wasn’t any more vicious than anything fans have been seeing on TV for years. Candice stumbled around shortly before the knockout blow, suggesting she had been weakened by the earlier attacks, but the brief match barely featured enough offense to bear that out.

If the goal was to make Xia look like a killer, they could have done a much more convincing job with a flurry of strikes softening LeRae up before putting her down. Instead, this looked more like an accident where Candice got knocked loopy.

And if that was the case, then this is an unfortunate “down.”