8 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 23)

1. Does Anyone Care?

Randy Orton
WWE.com

There’s a very good chance this rivalry could get positive marks in future weeks, but the six-man tag match anchored by the AJ Styles/Randy Orton feud just didn’t work Monday night.

The bout itself was very paint-by-numbers, with Karl Anderson, Erik and Orton trading off being in peril before things broke down at the end, with Orton hitting an RKO on Anderson, only to suffer a Phenomenal Forearm for the loss.

This is a continuation of the feud started when Orton cost Styles the United States Championship (after The Good Brothers cost Randy a shot at the title). That rivalry hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, though in theory it should lead to a decent singles match to blow off things. (However, their WrestleMania match earlier this year wasn’t exactly one for the ages.)

Maybe it’s just Orton’s general malaise, but it was tough to care about this feud Monday night. Better luck next week?

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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.