4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (9 February - Results & Review)
Elimination Chamber comes into focus while WrestleMania takes a bit of a backseat.
After last week’s screen-melting promo exchange between Roman Reigns and CM Punk, Monday Night Raw this week was either going to be a near-impossible escalation, or it was going to be a serious cooldown week.
It’s safe to say that WWE delivered the latter Monday night.
Raw offered fans the kind of fare one might expect 10 weeks out from WrestleMania when a lot is still up in the air but it’s too soon to really lock down most of these matches. They teased a couple angles and produced some building blocks for others, but the overall result was a show that did more to build Elimination Chamber than to construct a Mania card.
Unfortunately, the show did not offer great wrestling, with only a couple fleeting decent matches and moments. The best showing from the superstars on the night came in the form of a tense promo exchange between CM Punk and Finn Balor in a feud where the outcome is so obvious that it had the Raw GM literally screaming it during the segment.
Not the best effort here during WrestleMania season, but at this stage in the build, this would be the spot to drop a “holding pattern” episode.
Let’s get to it…