9 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (March 7th)

Sami Zayn arrives, Y2AJ implodes, and Ambrose is unhinged.

By Scott Carlson /

It really is amazing how logical storytelling, good matches and well-timed surprises can make for a completely enjoyable Monday Night Raw. There was no Undertaker, no Brock Lesnar, no John Cena and no Roman Reigns. There was only one McMahon in-ring promo, and it featured the one family member that fans seem to love (Shane McMahon), which in turn generated a strong reaction against the other (Vince).

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We had a Tag Team Championship match as promised, and it delivered both during and after the bout. We saw Dean Ambrose continue his unlikely run as Reigns€™ stand-in, with fans solidly rallying behind him and against world champ Triple H. While it€™s great to see Dean get this opportunity to shine, it€™s just going to make reality come crashing down even harder if and when WWE has Ambrose lose in some fashion and not get a title shot at WrestleMania.

Fans also saw the re-debut of a wrestler who first came to the main roster nearly a year ago, only to get sidetracked by injury. But now, it looks like he€™s here to stay.

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But we also saw women€™s wrestling degrade back down to the short bathroom break matches that dominated Raw a year ago, a very disappointing development when we got two video recaps of the opening segment, meaning that there was time that could have been used better. We saw R-Truth dress up as a pizza delivery guy to woo Goldust. Dolph Ziggler kept living in the past and got punished for it. And we didn€™t see Roman Reigns. At all. Hope his nose is healing.

All in all, it was a good offering that hopefully is a sign of things to come as WrestleMania is inside of four weeks away.

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So what superkicked the competition and what was shellshocked out of existence? Let€™s get to it