5 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 19)
3. Right To The Action
WWE did something really unique Monday night: It opened Raw with a 100-minute match.
Sure, the gauntlet match really was six individual matches threaded together, but there technically is only one winner – in this case, Braun Strowman. The match lasted through the midpoint of Raw, and yet fans were still pretty into it at the end when Braun demolished the Miz.
Along the way, there were some pretty nice storylines: Seth Rollins persevering and earning respect; Rollins, Elias and Finn Balor all being picked apart and registering injuried body parts just six days before the Elimination Chamber; and John Cena not having his killer instinct switched on.
You could make the argument that the gauntlet match ran on for far too long, but let’s give WWE credit for doing something different and putting on a real match, when they could have burned through half of the eliminations in 10 minutes total.