5 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb. 22)
Bobby Lashley dominates Raw, The Miz cowers, Shane McMahon sows seeds, Randy Orton spits up goo.
Ladies and gentlemen, do not adjust your TV sets. It’s not magically 2011 again. Miz is WWE Champion… in 2021.
After a dismal run that saw Miz win exactly two televised singles matches in 14 months, Miz won his third on Sunday, cashing in the Money in the Bank briefcase to become world champion again and demoralizing Drew McIntyre so much that he didn’t even show up to work on Monday night.
Miz, however, ran into a buzzsaw while trying to celebrate, as the best-booked wrestler on Raw – Bobby Lashley – showed up to demand a title shot of his own. That was the best part of Raw, with Lashley looking like a million bucks.
But beyond that, it really wasn’t a good episode. Apparently, we’re still supposed to believe that Shane McMahon is some legendary WWE performer who gets trotted out at WrestleMania season to face some main roster superstar in an “epic” (read: trash) battle. And Randy Orton is still engaged in a feud that has killed off the Fiend’s mystique more than barbecuing him did.
The wrestling underperformed too, as we got a couple of decent matches, but a fair bit of it was just window dressing and little more. And RETRIBUTION fashioned its own noose on Monday night. Oh, and WWE decided to call Puerto Rico a country… at a time when the biggest musical act in the country is a part of your show, and he happens to hail from the same island.
Let’s get to it…