8 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (May 9th)

2. A Convincing Win

WWE.com

Last week after Payback, many were decrying Dolph Ziggler€™s victory over newcomer Baron Corbin as a ridiculous move by WWE, that the company€™s new big villain should not be losing a match so soon in his run. And they might have a point there.

But this column pointed out that what was important was how Ziggler won, goldbricking and luring Corbin in, rolling him up for a surprise pin. At nearly every other stage of this feud, Baron has had the upper hand on Dolph €“ save for being eliminated in last week€™s United States Championship #1 contender battle royal, but Corbin got revenge immediately.

And on Monday, Corbin decisively won a rematch against Ziggler, controlling much of the bout and hitting a couple big moves, including a huge Deep Six and then a Snake Eyes right into an End of Days for the win. Ziggler had to rely on playing possum and getting a couple moves here and there, but he looked like he was outmatched, which is how you make a heel look convincing.

Provided that Corbin goes on to win some other matches decisively (and we hopefully don€™t get an Extreme Rules rematch where Dolph €œgets his win back€), then his one loss is just a minor blemish, chalked up as a rookie mistake.

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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.