8 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (18 Sept - Results & Review)

1. Still Doesn’t Correct Past Mistakes

The Shinsuke Nakamura/Seth Rollins feud started with so much promise, and then it all went off the rails at Payback when Nakamura lost clean as a sheet in a mediocre match.

Then it continued to careen into the ditch with Shinsuke “playing mind games” by refusing to take advantage of an injured Rollins and accept his challenges for the World Heavyweight Championship, demurring multiple times.

Monday, Nakamura taunted Rollins and eventually goaded him into a fight where his back was knackered once again. The premise here seems to be that Nakamura wants to injure the champ more before a rematch… because that worked so well the first time.

The problem here is that they’ve employed this exact scenario just last month, and while Rollins sold the back for much of their title match, he just shrugged it off several times to hit his usual offense before pulling out the win with a surprise stomp.

WWE has lost the thread with this rivalry, spinning their wheels in their second month of the same plot: Rollins’ back is wrecked, but not enough that he can’t pull out a mid-match Phoenix Splash for a Shocked Face Kickout.