8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 29)

2. Burning Through First-Time Evers

Sasha Banks Asuka
WWE.com

There was a time when the first encounter between wrestlers was a selling point for a PPV or at least to tune in next week. Today, it’s used to hold onto viewers into the next hour of Raw.

We got two first-time matches Monday night, with John Cena squaring off against Finn Balor, and Sasha Banks facing Asuka. While giving fans fresh matchups is a definite positive, you would have thought that at least one of these would have been built up a bit. First-time matches can’t all be special, but burning two of them on the same night with top-level superstars seemed a bit strange.

What’s next, Nia Jax versus Asuka on free TV? Oh wait…

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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.