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

2. Selling Like A Champ (Let’s Hope)

sami zayn seth rollins
WWE.com

When Sami Zayn did his springing reverse leapfrog over Seth Rollins and landed awkwardly on his right ankle, a lot of fans immediately feared the worst. We all just saw Finn Balor relinquish his newly won WWE Universal Championship, and all you could think was that now Zayn was going to join him on the shelf.

But Sami soldiered on, putting together a really solid match with Rollins targeting the injured ankle (leading to a belief that this was part of the match and not a legit injury, hopefully). But Zayn was so believable that at times it was uncomfortable to watch because you thought he was just limping along, much like Balor did Sunday and how Sami himself did last year against John Cena.

Rollins pulled out the victory in part due to Zayn’s ankle preventing him from delivering key moves, capping a totally believable match that made Sami look more like a warrior for continuing on rather than someone who came up short in a big match.

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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.