8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (August 1)

6. Effective Squashes

Nia Jax Squash
WWE.com

Some readers seem to be confused about squash matches, that it would be perfectly fine to establish Braun Strowman and Nia Jax by having them beat Alicia Fox, Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel and Summer Rae week after week.

But while this column heartily endorses squash matches like the ones Jax and Strowman won Monday night, this should not go on in perpetuity. If Jax and Strowman are still beating local competitors two months from now, something is wrong. But in these first several weeks, it allows the announcers to gush and fans to “oooh” and “aaah” at their power moves without damaging the reputation of anyone on the main roster.

For example, Nia’s new finisher (at least, she won the match with it) of a fireman’s carry into a powerslam looked pretty effective, more so than the legdrop she had been using. It drew a pretty good reaction from the crowd. And Byron Saxton interviewing Evan Anderholm about why he’d volunteer to face Strowman (he gets $1,000 for the match, $5,000 if he wins!) was actually pretty funny.

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Contributor
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.