8 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 10)

4. A Win Without Being The Lucky Underdog

WWE has a formula it loves to employ whenever they have a David versus Goliath match.

If the smaller wrestler is bound to win, s/he often gets pummeled on for the majority of the match and shows a ton of heart by overcoming the opposition and manages to eke out a victory, sometimes by pure luck.

It’s a hackneyed cliché, and it doesn’t do anything to help build up the smaller wrestler, as everyone knows s/he was lucky to get past the larger opponent. And oftentimes, it doesn’t lead to any great advancement.

Monday, Ricochet faced the larger Bobby Lashley in the lead-up to his WWE Championship match against Brock Lesnar. And while Lashley is much bigger and stronger, Ricochet controlled large portions of their match, hitting a series of high-impact moves, while Lashley took control with a couple big moves of his own but didn’t spend the whole match beating the #1 contender down.

It was good to see WWE resist its normal inclinations in this case. This doesn’t mean the WWE philosophy has changed, but it was good to see it ignored for at least a week.