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

4. Brushing Cesaro Aside

roman reigns rusev
WWE.com

Unless this is leading to something more, what we saw to close Raw will certainly not endear Roman Reigns to fans.

Cesaro had just lost a hard-fought battle to Rusev for the United States Championship, thanks to repeated interference from Sheamus. So with Rusev escaping with his title due to a tainted victory, you’d think the focus would be on Cesaro possibly getting another fair shot at the title, right?

Wrong. Roman came out to, as Michael Cole put it, “mark his territory” by spearing Rusev. And just like that, we’re supposed to accept that Reigns is the rightful challenger for the U.S. title, despite his only claim being that he indirectly knocked Lana into a wedding cake (no, seriously). Who did Reigns beat to earn a title shot? We know Cesaro beat Sheamus… twice.

Now, if this is leading to Cesaro lodging a complaint next week or even considering defecting to SmackDown, then it could be something good. But if this is supposed to be Cesaro stepping aside for Roman, then some are just going to boo Reigns louder, fair or not.

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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.