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

By Scott Carlson /

6. Paying Tribute

Whenever Black History Month has rolled around, WWE has always paid some degree of lip service toward it, whether it€™s running a short segment on Tony Atlas or Rocky Johnson or some other African-American wrestler. But Monday, WWE paid tribute to one of its current and longest-tenured stars, Mark Henry. It was a nice, if odd, retrospective that highlighted Henry€™s powerlifting accomplishments and his 20-year career in WWE. Everything was really well done, but it got strange when the announcers started talking about the World€™s Strongest Man as if he was no longer with the company, as if he had retired.Sure, Henry is winding down his in-ring career, which is what made this tribute so nice and genuine, but putting an epitaph to his career before he hangs up his boots is just odd.