8 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 24)
Rollins wins a convert, McIntyre tells his story, Black gets jumped.
One advantage of building to three PPVs simultaneously is that there’s plenty of stuff happening. But a downside of that is that none are being completely, effectively built up.
That’s kind of what we’re facing here with WWE building to Super Showdown on Thursday, Elimination Chamber in two weeks, and WrestleMania 36 in six weeks. You have some matches being plugged for Mania already, others dependent on the results of the next two PPVs, and others still up in the air.
So while Raw was entertaining Monday night and had very few blatantly negative moments, it also did not have many super-memorable, signature moments either. Call it empty calories – it might have tasted good, but it’s not going to have a long-term, significant benefit.
Raw moved the ball down the field a bit in a couple areas – Drew McIntyre’s interview, Kevin Owens/Seth Rollins mixing up their feud a little bit, Angel Garza looking more and more like a star – but some areas remain nebulous.
There are some puzzle pieces that should fall into place in the coming weeks – Edge returning to confront Randy Orton, Shayna Baszler officially challenging Becky Lynch at Mania, Brock defending against McIntyre – but for now, WWE is trying to tell multiple stories at multiple levels without burning any one of them out too early.
So far, so good overall, but it’ll be nice when we’re focused solely on one goal. With that said, let’s get to it…