8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (July 15)

3. Balor’s No-Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week

samoa joe finn balor
WWE.com

Man, who did Finn Balor piss off?

Sunday night, then-Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor was relegated to the kickoff show curtain-jerker match, which he then lost, losing his title in the process. It seemed like maybe Balor was being set up to move on to something bigger and better, but then Monday rolled around.

Finn was set to square off against Samoa Joe, which could have been a really good match. Instead, we got a really short bout, with Joe scoring a rollup for a quick win. Then Finn attacked Joe (who won fairly, mind you). But as Balor “celebrated” after his loss, the lights went out and a returning Bray Wyatt laid him out with a Sister Abigail.

So in 24 hours, Balor lost his Intercontinental Championship to Shinsuke Nakamura, lost in a couple minutes to Joe, and got beat up by Wyatt. That’s a pretty bad week for the Irish superstar.

(It turns out that Balor apparently has asked WWE for some time off, which would likely explain this semi-burial if it’s accurate.)

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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.