WWE Raw: Results, Highlights, and Grades for July 16, 2018

Photo Source: WWE.com via Twitter

Has He Lost His Mind?

Let’s check off the boxes from Ziggler’s by the numbers promo here. Cheesy pun? Check. Pop culture reference? Check. Bragging about his performance? Three for three. It’s frustrating, too, because Ziggler is actually pretty good on the mic. He wouldn’t be a stand-up comedian in his free time if he couldn’t talk, right? To be watered down to such basic nonsense stinks.

As Dolph puts himself over — not mentioning the awful crowd from Extreme Rules — he’s interrupted by Bobby Roode, who admits being on the sidelines at the pay per view sucked. But Roode, not willing to give Ziggler all the credit without mentioning Drew McIntyre’s involvement, calls the Intercontinental Champion out for a title shot.

Ziggler agrees to a fight — but not for the title. Roode is furious, but the match gets underway…

Dolph Ziggler vs. Bobby Roode

Result: Dolph Ziggler defeated Bobby Roode via pinfall

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

… and despite looking like it’s going to be over quickly, we get an actual match out of the confrontation for a few minutes. The trouble is, after such an outstanding triple threat match, no one in the crowd wanted to see it.

Another thing working against the match is Roode’s ineptitude of late. He has done precisely squat in the past month or so. And after the way the Pittsburgh crowd treated Dolph Ziggler and the Intercontinental Championship at Extreme Rules, Buffalo just sat on their hands instead. There was nothing super compelling about the match, which was a dud on SmackDown about six months ago.

And for this match to come about the way it did, you would have thought Roode would win the non-title match by some flukey thing to “earn” a title shot. Thankfully, that finish didn’t happen — but instead, Roode looks like an idiot for issuing a challenge he couldn’t back up more than Dolph looks like a fighting champion (to me, at least).

Maybe this will be the impetus for a much-needed character change for Roode, but as is, it was just poorly thought out.