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

3. Opening Salvo Masquerading As Closing Argument

There is some praise coming for the opening segment of Raw, but first, a bone to pick with WWE and how they’ve plotted this Undisputed WWE Championship rivalry.

For the third consecutive week, John Cena opened Raw by marching down to the ring to offer up a messy word salad. This time, however, Cody Rhodes cut off Cena and kicked off a pretty memorable exchange.

Where this deserves criticism is that this was the third – and most importantly, final – appearance from Cena before WrestleMania 41. The first two were barely table-setting showings, although Cena did lay out the premise of wanting to “ruin wrestling” – which he then sort of retconned Monday night (more on that in a moment).

Monday’s exchange would have been a great second (or even first) face-to-face between Cena and Rhodes, with a third, more violent encounter coming inside two weeks to serve as the real go-home segment. As it stands, this will be the last face-to-face and the last time we see Cena, which means Cody will have to carry the rivalry entirely (unless Cena sends in a pre-taped video or The Rock shows up).

That’s a problem. This should be a building block for the feud, not the last time fans see the two principals together interacting ahead of 'Mania. That’s some poor planning.