7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (August 13)

5. Keeping Moon Strong

ember moon alexa bliss
WWE.com

When it was announced that Ember Moon was facing Alexa Bliss a week before the latter’s Raw Women’s Championship match against Ronda Rousey, there was a feeling of dread.

Pre-PPV matches like this can go one of a couple ways: The person with the PPV match needs the win (especially in Bliss’ case, where she is facing an uphill battle), but they can also be overconfident and lose to sow doubt.

Moon is a rising star in the women’s division, so losing to the champ in a nothing match like this would have been stupid. But Bliss losing or looking vulnerable would have hurt her. So instead, Bliss attacked Rousey outside the ring, then fell to Moon’s Eclipse, only for Alicia Fox to save her from defeat.

Alexa distracted herself by going after Ronda, but she also showed how her backup could save the day at SummerSlam. Meanwhile, Ember looked solid against the champ and hopefully will stay in the title picture regardless of who wins on Sunday.

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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.