8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 12)

Downs...

6. Cheating To Get Back On Track

This column often praises Cesaro’s exploits in the ring and laments his lack of push. So why is his victory in the best-of-seven series against Sheamus a negative?

It comes down to one simple, small thing: Cesaro cheated by using the ropes for leverage to win. A couple questions: Did Sheamus overtly cheat at any time to win the first three matches? Did he cheat when he injured Cesaro’s back? Sheamus didn’t use any shortcuts in Monday’s match, just viciously attacked his opponent’s lower back, which was taped up like his shoulder is each week.

So basically, Sheamus injured Cesaro in an early match in the series and then focused Monday on attacking it nonstop all match, only to lose to a rollup with the ropes. Yes, the point made about doing what you need to do to survive applies, but you also have to take into account the fact Cesaro is a good guy fighting from underneath with an injury and resorted to cheating to win.

Things like this just don’t make a ton of sense. If Sheamus had overtly cheated on one or two matches, you could get away with “turnabout is fair play.” But this was just odd.