7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 14th)
4. Midcard Mic Time
While it wasnt a home run, the in-ring promos between Intercontinental Champion Ryback and Kevin Owens to set up their IC title match at Night of Champions was pretty well done. You got the feeling that the writers gave them an outline and let them fill in some of the blanks. It felt a lot less scripted than many of the backstage promos have where people look like theyre reading off cue cards. Ryback is not the talker that Owens is, but he held his own, even turning Kevins bad toss of a book (he attempted to throw the book out of the ring, but it hit the ropes and bounced back inside) into a nice little improvised exchange. Owens, of course, is dynamite on the stick, as he showed in his feud with John Cena. He nailed it when he said that The Secret (the book in question) was an excuse, a crutch for weak people, cutting down Ryback a little. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFVFhxtrSZQ The feud between these two has really come out of nowhere, and while many fans want to see Owens get elevated up the card, this could be a fun rivalry if it continues. And it was a pleasant surprise to see the two men get some time to establish a feud and let fans get invested in it.
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.
