7 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (March 30th)

Once again, the Raw After WrestleMania delivers.

The Raw After WrestleMania (or RAW for short) has become almost as hotly anticipated as WrestleMania itself. In some ways, it actually is just as important as Mania, as RAW amplifies what happened at the big event, gives context and depth to the big developments, and charts a path forward for WWE. The Raw After WrestleMania also is a raucous affair €“ with WWE superfans who have traveled far and wide hanging around an extra day to take in another show €“ that often contains surprises, sometimes in the form of a return, a debut or a title change. Monday night€™s Raw gave fans exactly what they paid for and thensome, with two NXT stars debuting on the main roster, a mainstay returning to action, and a beast unleashed. With a crowd that never stopped from beginning to end, it was a high-energy episode that begs the question: If WWE writers can do this on the Raw After WrestleMania, why can€™t they do this more often? True, it€™s impossible to keep up this pace every week, but surely they can come up with something energetic like this more often than once every 52 weeks. Nonetheless, RAW was an episode to DVR, so let€™s see what knocked it out of the park and what whiffed on Monday night Raw. It should be noted that even the €œdowns€ are not major points of contention €“ some of it is more constructive criticism going forward.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.