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

Ups...

8. Better Late Than Never

titus o'neil darren young
WWE.com

OK, this is what should have been done two or three weeks ago.

Titus O’Neil finally gave us an outright heel turn Monday night, bragging about dropping the dead weight that is Darren Young and blaming his former tag partner for all his shortcomings. He then upped the ante by assaulting a 67-year-old Bob Backlund, who had charged the ring. Now if you can’t boo a man who attacks a senior citizen, who can you boo?

The sad thing is that this is probably what should have happened immediately after Titus cheated to beat Young several weeks ago, rather than trading wins and then teaming back up for one night (which ended how you’d expect). Fans needed a reason to care about this feud, and all of that wasn’t doing it.

Titus venting and blaming Darren for all his failings and then beating up his life coach at least is something to build off of. Will it work? Who knows at this point, but at least they’re trying something bigger than another incremental step.

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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.