7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (March 4)

1. Making It Very Real

Triple H has a checkered history when it comes to selling WrestleMania matches. He tries really hard to make his rivalries these days feel super-personal and very important, and it all comes off with mixed results.

But Monday’s promo was about as good as he’s been for some time, as Triple H started by talking about his relationship with Ric Flair the person, not the wrestler. He talked about attending each other’s weddings, being there when Flair’s son died, and waiting for a phone call last year when Ric was in a coma that he had passed away.

All of that tied back to Flair’s 70th birthday celebration last week that Batista ruined by attacking the Nature Boy backstage. Hunter lost his temper and started to call him a “piece of…” and then went on mock Batista’s Instagram video as “Bad Guy 101.”

It was an overall solid promo that cast Triple H as the babyface here who was rightfully pissed off and ready to destroy Batista whenever and wherever he could. The only mark against it was his “not a character” bit at the end, but otherwise, this was a really good first step toward their likely Mania match.