We're officially one week removed from the two biggest and most important shows of the year: WrestleMania 31 and the subsequent Monday Night Raw. While Mania was, by all accounts a very-good-to-fantastic show, the next night's Raw started off extremely strong but sputtered to a disappointing ending after a weak third hour. The highlight of the show was Brock Lesnar going on a rampage, destroying announcers and cameramen in his quest to get his hands on Seth Rollins and was suspended indefinitely in order to write him off TV for a while, reportedly until SummerSlam. The main event was more of the same, with Rollins, Kane and Big Show squaring off against Randy Orton, Ryback and Roman Reigns, who - at least as far as the crowd in San Jose was concerned - wasn't granted any modicum of respect for the beating he withstood at the hands of Lesnar the night before. So where do we go from here? We open with the in-ring promo that has become standard fare at this point, in fact it's impossible to remember the last time Raw kicked off with anything other than someone standing in the squared circle yammering for 15 or more minutes. It's the curse of unimaginative and repetitive booking that we've been plagued with for years. We're begging for some variety in the layout of the shows. So did things pick up from there or did we continue down the same tired path that WrestleMania 31 briefly deviated from? Let's get to the ups and downs.
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
