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

3. Welcome To A Main Event Feud

Finn Balor Seth Rollins
WWE.com

Last week, WWE fans were introduced to former NXT Champion Finn Balor, as he won two huge matches to become a top contender for the newly created WWE Universal Championship. He won over fans with his in-ring work, but WWE main eventers do just as much work on the mic as they do in the ring, so it was going to be interesting to see how Finn fared.

Balor started off an interview with Michael Cole, but that quickly gave way to Seth Rollins, who took over the interview and talked up Finn at the same time as he belittled him and patted himself on the back. Rollins carried the segment, bashing the Atlanta fans (and the Braves to draw some old-fashioned hometown sports heat) and acting like a jerk, allowing Balor to just state his intentions to win the new title at SummerSlam and point out that he’s been a top guy everywhere he’s been.

While this wasn’t a superb talking segment – Balor’s best work comes inside the ring – it still worked well and showed that Finn belongs where he is and can hold his own. It’ll be interesting to see if he gets more comfortable as time goes on, but this was a nice start.

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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.