7 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (March 9)

Edge seeks revenge, The Man comes around, Black's a bridesmaid, AJ gets personal.

by Scott Carlson

Coming off a supremely disappointing Elimination Chamber, WWE needed to turn the page and get laser-focused on WrestleMania 36, using whatever good elements from Sunday’s PPV existed to its benefit.

For the most part, the company succeeded. But WWE also heads into the home stretch with a couple storyline deficiencies and shortcomings. We saw the return of Edge, but Undertaker and Brock Lesnar were nowhere to be seen. Shayna Baszler also was absent the day after her coronation for Mania, which might have been a wise decision.

Becky Lynch delivered a blistering promo, while Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley smartly advanced their rivalry. AJ Styles got way too personal in trying to fire up his feud with Taker. Drew McIntyre rid us of Erick Rowan’s stupid cage while knocking off the big man. Aleister Black got another high-profile match that doesn’t seem to have any endgame.

Raw was fine overall, but it certainly didn’t feel like one of the last few shows before WrestleMania, as the company tries to click on all cylinders to “build momentum” to the biggest show of the year. Of course, there are a few more opportunities to land the plane, and this didn’t knock it off-course.

With that said, let’s get to it, starting with the negatives...

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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.