6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (8 December - Results & Review)

DOWNS…

4. Another High-Production Maxxine Video

For the second week in a row, WWE aired a grainy, well-produced vignette featuring Maxxine Dupri training at the Dungeon with Natalya as the Women’s Intercontinental Champion repeatedly tapped-out sparring partners, demanding “another one.”

And for the second week in a row, there’s a good amount of praise to heap for the quality of the video and the story it’s telling, as it basically introduces the “Nattie” character to WWE fans.

But again, the criticisms remain the same. Unless Maxxine has suddenly become a wrestling savant, eventually the bell is going to ring, and those slickly edited videos of Dupri out-wrestling opponents and tapping them out are going to look as fake as snow in July. If the ancillary purpose was introducing Nattie, they did no favors by having her tap out in the closing moments of the segment, implying that the student had already eclipsed the teacher.

It’s perfectly understandable if people love these videos and think they’re note-perfect. They just feel like a mirage that is going to be exposed any day now.

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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.