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

3. Rusev Crushed

rusev kalisto
WWE.com

WWE sure loves taking its heels and having them lose as part of a build to a PPV. While Paige as a former Divas champ beating Charlotte is believable, Rusev losing to a wrestler who€™s lost all but four televised matches this year (all tag team bouts) is quite the opposite.

Sure, the idea here was that Sin Cara is United States Champion Kalisto€™s tag partner, and Kalisto got involved in the match to help Sin Cara win. That supposedly adds fuel to the fire. But couldn€™t the same thing have been accomplished if Rusev defeated Sin Cara and continued to lock in the Accolade after the bell, prompting Kalisto to jump him and knock him out of the ring?

Instead, you have a wrestler in Rusev WWE potentially is trying to rebuild as a serious heel (complete with Lana accompanying him to ringside again), and he loses his second singles match after becoming #1 contender for the U.S. title. And WWE wonders why no one truly is a draw with fans

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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.