8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Aug 22)

3. Neville Shines In Loss

kevin owens neville
WWE.com

This is an item that has appeared in the “ups” category before. Whenever Neville is given a chance to really perform in a match with stakes, he consistently rises to the occasion. Remember how he nearly defeated Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship last year, and he’s had a couple really good matches against Kevin Owens.

Monday night, Neville squared off again against KO in a bout to determine who would go on to compete for the vacant Universal Championship next week. Even though it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Owens would nab one of those slots, Neville kept fans on the edge of their seats with some impressive moves, including a 450 splash off the apron to the floor, a corkscrew moonsault and a deadlift German suplex to the 266-pound Owens.

In the end, Owens hit an Argentine neckbreaker for the win. The real crime here will be if Neville is back to wrestling on the undercard in meaningless matches next week. Just once, it would be nice to see WWE build off a performance like this.

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Contributor

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.