7 Ups And 9 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 1)

Brock and Ambrose cross paths and Roman Reigns is a selfish jerk.

It is WrestleMania season, right? The sign is up above the arena each week, and everyone should be jockeying for position on the Mania card, desperately wanting to claim their €œWrestleMania moment.€ And oh yeah, they definitely should be pointing at the sign, right? The questions have to be asked because Monday night, WWE put on an episode of Raw that felt more like it was riding the inertia from last week and coasting toward a normal PPV (which in truth it is), with no sense of urgency. Granted, there still are nine weeks before WrestleMania XXXII, and Fastlane is less than three weeks away with only two matches announced, so priorities. But you figure that WWE is going to be inside of two months before Mania next week without top two or three matches even announced or established. Undertaker hasn€™t showed up yet. Brock Lesnar€™s opponent (**coughcough** Bray Wyatt **coughcough**) won€™t become solid until after Fastlane, and neither will the #1 contender for Triple H€™s WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Sasha Banks has declared her intention to beat Charlotte for the Divas Championship, and as great of a match as that might be, it won€™t sell out AT&T Stadium. While the card doesn€™t need to be set in stone this far out, Monday€™s episode of Raw didn€™t feel like WrestleMania was in the air. It felt like a normal episode of Raw on a normal arc toward a normal PPV. That€™s not a bad thing, but it€™s not a good sign when you look at a calendar. WWE needs to step up its hype machine if it wants to generate some interest. In the interim, what is flying down the road in the fast lane, and what€™s stuck in neutral? Let€™s get to it€
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 fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.