8 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 11)
1. One Versus One?
Leave it to WWE to book a match, promote it throughout the show, and then have it turn into a total cluster in the end. (Doesnt that sound a lot like what WCW used to do?) In the opening segment, Mr. McMahon announced a one versus all match, in which some undetermined number of superstars would compete against WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns. Now, it wasnt clear whether this would be a handicap tag match, nor was it clear how many wrestlers would square off against Reigns. Finally, we found out that it would be one man facing Roman at a time, until he couldnt continue. If you told the average fan that, they would assume that a couple lower-level wrestlers would get first dibs and lose quickly so Reigns could score a couple pins before succumbing to the numbers. Instead, we got Kevin Owens right out of the chute with 13 other heels on the outside. Owens battled Reigns the entire match, until McMahon decided to send everyone in to interfere, ending the match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3IeLaoUU_Y It was horrible booking that simply served as a poor excuse to have a bunch of guys out there to be cannon fodder for Reigns and Brock Lesnar later. Other than that, it was a one-on-one match with a bunch of spectators.
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.
