9 Burning Questions For WWE Raw (July 18th)

6. Can Darren Young Step It Up?

darren young bob backlund
WWE.com

Last week was an interesting one for Darren Young. The former tag team champion won a battle royal to earn an Intercontinental Championship title match when the other two remaining participants eliminated each other. It was quite possibly one of the weakest ways to become a #1 contender, and not how you build up a new star.

Then on Smackdown, Young appeared on Miz TV and verbally sparred with his Battleground opponent, putting Miz in his place and looking confident. That is the Darren Young we want to see. Sure, WWE played the “Make Darren Young Great Again” skits for laughs, but at the end of the day, they need new stars who will be taken as serious threats for various titles, not more contestants for dance-offs and background characters for food fights.

Can Young continue to make strides and rise to the occasion against Miz on Raw? You know the Awesome One will be up to the challenge of belittling his opponent, so maybe it’s incumbent upon Darren to use his mentor’s Crossface Chickenwing to shut his mouth.

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.