9 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 21)

by Scott Carlson

1. Rollins’ Passionate Promo

seth rollins promo
WWE.com

Setting aside a clunky Martin Luther King Jr. reference, Seth Rollins actually did something few wrestlers do these days: Deliver a meaningful promo.

Rollins spoke about how his wrestling life fell apart in the past few months, but how his focus on wrestling is what has grounded him. He declared he was going to win the Royal Rumble, despite being a longshot to pull it off.

From there, he noted that his entire life has been a longshot, given his relatively normal size and unassuming upbringing in a small midwestern town. Rollins even noted that he could very easily have ended up working in a factory or on a farm or driving a truck, if not for his talent and passion for wrestling.

It was the kind of introspective promo we don’t get very often, but when it’s done well, it really can help a wrestler connect with the fans, and this did the job pretty nicely.

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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.