6 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (March 14th)
Mick, Taker, Brock and Trips on Raw? What went wrong?
How on Earth could a Raw featuring Mick Foley, Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, Shane McMahon and R-Truth in a penguin costume possibly be bad? If you dont know the answer, then you havent been watching WWE for the past year or so. WWE could take lemons, sugar, water and a pitcher and still couldnt make lemonade.
Raw had some good moments Monday night, but it missed the mark on nearly every major angle it went for. Undertaker versus Shane fell way flat. Roman Reigns big return was met with a John Cena-like response, only quieter. Dolph Ziggler stood up to the Authority and got beaten down. Oh, and Jacqueline is now a WWE Hall of Famer.
This has got to be worrying for WWE officials, less than three weeks out from WrestleMania. The company put on a Network special event, Roadblock, that featured a main event that many fans were looking forward to more than the Mania main event, with Dean Ambrose standing in for his buddy Reigns. Its clear that WWE has perception issues among its fanbase, but its also clear that the company isnt willing (or able) to change course this time (as they have for Mania the past two years).
There obviously is always time to make a course correction or two, but its getting tougher to get legitimately excited for WrestleMania, especially when the top three matches feature four part-timers and only one of those matches is really capturing fans imaginations. But first, we have to get through this episode of Raw.
So what stood tall and what was left battered and bloody? Lets get to it