7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 19)

4. Re-Establishing The Underdog

charlotte bayley
WWE.com

When Bayley pinned Charlotte in a nontitle match two weeks ago, it raised some questions among longtime NXT fans who remember that a big part of her character was being an underdog who had to scrap and fight for respectability.

So it felt weird when Bayley beat the champion in her second singles match on Raw. Right out of the gate, the writers had taken away the doubt of whether Bayley could beat the champ – no matter what happened from then on out, she already had. But in the last two weeks, we’ve seen Bayley end up on the short end of matches.

Last week, Bayley was pinned by Sasha Banks (though it later appeared that both women’s shoulders were down), and Monday, Charlotte got the pin after a little interference from tag partner Dana Brooke. Now heading into Sunday, Bayley has lost to both of her opponents, and it’s easier to sell the early win as a fluke and let fans invest in her journey to become champion rather than giving it to them all at once.

(Now that that has been written, watch Bayley win the title clean just to erase it all.)

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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.