7 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 21)
Belair, Lynch ignite feud, Edge issues open challenge, Logan Paul is mystery man.
Here’s the inherent problem with WrestleMania season: It hides a lot of the imperfections and shortcomings of WWE programming. Yell about WrestleMania and point at the sign a bunch, bring back legends, trot out celebrities and talk about matches as being huge, and it masks a lot of the problems we’ve complained about for the previous 10 months.
The stretch between Royal Rumble and Mania typically are the best programming-wise and turn even the most cynical viewers into ostensible fans, if only for that brief period. Superstars also seem to step up their game, so it reminds us of what we could actually have if WWE takes the reins off and lets their talented roster perform.
So yes, this becomes WWE’s first truly passable Raw in quite some time, as the negatives weren’t gigantic, and some of the highs were actually pretty notable. Raw entertained for the most part, with Brock Lesnar, Becky Lynch/Bianca Belair, Edge, and American Alpha all delivering.
Sure, we had to suffer through the umpteenth match between Nikki ASH and Rhea Ripley, a 24/7 romance angle that was plain awful, and a dumbed-down Tomasso Ciampa match, but those were minor compared to some of the downs in the past few months. (There was no golden egg, for example!)
With that said, let’s get to it…