8 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (20 Jan - Results & Review)

6. Hubris and Miscommunication Dominate Main Event

WWE Raw Sami Zayn Seth Rollins
WWE

Drew McIntyre and Seth Rollins were a WrestleMania XL opening match just nine months ago. Monday night, they closed out Raw in a much lower stakes match.

That’s not to say that this wasn’t a good match, but going into it, was anyone believing that this was going to accomplish anything in the ring? The action between two accomplished former world champions was steady, with both men trading and countering moves throughout. McIntyre landed a Future Shock DDT and several clotheslines, growing supremely confident that victory was seconds away. But Rollins grabbed a jackknife cover for the win, leaving Drew aghast.

Cue the beatdown, as McIntyre couldn’t handle losing a very winnable match. Sami Zayn, fresh on the heels of his backstage conversation with Rollins, ran down to make the save, but in the melee, he managed to accidentally Helluva Kick Seth when Drew moved.

Zayn’s errant kick isn’t directly going to lead to Rollins turning heel, but McIntyre has been trying to win Seth over to his way of thinking lately, and this will only become another brick in that foundation.

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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.