5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (31 Mar - Results & Review)

Coming into Monday, Raw had three big objectives regarding WrestleMania world title matches. WWE pulled off an interesting feat, landing one perfectly, skidding off the runway with another, and crashing in a fireball with the third.

WWE is inside three weeks to WrestleMania 41, and they still are struggling to nail down major angles that really should be sewn up extremely well by now. Worse, the issues they’re having are with bankable stars, where a simple story and straightforward route probably would have worked, but they’ve opted to complicate things to everyone’s detriment.

They did, however, absolutely nail the resuscitative efforts on the World Heavyweight Championship feud between Gunther and Jey Uso, turning to the challenger’s twin to serve as the catalyst for the turnaround. Tremendous, gruesome work here that worked better than even the biggest optimist could have expected.

Cody Rhodes and John Cena had the final installment in their show-opening promo trilogy, with Cody getting the upper hand, both verbally and physically, but it still had its problems along the way. This was far from a disaster, but when this is your best effort to date, it should worry everyone to an extent.

Then there’s the Women’s World Championship, which seems destined to be contested in a triple threat, but WWE has insisted on the most convoluted storytelling imaginable, turning what should have been a simple and direct tale into a complete mess that has tanked the reputation of one of Raw’s top stars.

Let’s get to it…