7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (March 5)

2. Getting Right To It

There’s a time and a place to string things along and advance storylines one breadcrumb at a time over a period of time.

Monday night was certainly not one of them, and thankfully, WWE didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

After last week’s encounter between Kurt Angle, Ronda Rousey, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, it was pretty obvious to even the most obtuse wrestling fan where things were headed. Rousey has a guaranteed match at WrestleMania 34. Triple H sucker-punched Angle. Stephanie slapped Ronda. It all added up.

So Monday night, rather than trickle things out, Rousey named her opponent – Stephanie. And when she and Hunter protested, Angle not only pointed out that she had a superstar contract, but that Helmsley had one too. And then Kurt made a mixed tag match between the four.

It was a simple and direct matchmaking effort, with everything flowing quickly and directly from last week rather than trying to drag the announcement out for a couple more weeks.