8 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (10 Mar - Results & Review)
The second-best steel cage match of the week, Roman returns, Iyo won't be disrespected.
WWE programming when WrestleMania is six weeks out is an interesting time, especially in this era of booking.
The company is clearly in the mode of building excitement and interest in various feuds, developing late-breaking rivalries, and trying to map everything out so the stories peak at the right moment. Six weeks out, some of the major stories have already had their explosive moments to establish the matches and set the stakes, and everything is on cruise control, waiting for another outburst to ramp up the excitement.
As a result, fans get the occasional episode that advances several angles without the fireworks. It’s nonetheless a solid episode that does its job well, but six months from now, there will be very few – if any – moments that are fondly remembered, as they’ll likely be overshadowed by bigger moments in the closing weeks before WrestleMania.
That was this episode of Raw in a nutshell: a good enough episode that nudged a few stories along, jolted a couple, and spun the wheels with others. Everything was capped off with a steel cage match that had the misfortune of coming 24 hours after an ungodly great steel cage war in a rival promotion.
Perhaps everything has been clouded by the once-in-a-lifetime build for WrestleMania 40 with the Final Boss and the entire saga that unfolded there. Almost anything else would pale in comparison. Still, WrestleMania 41 is looking like it could be a really good card if the pieces fall into place correctly. This was just a solid – if unspectacular – cog in the wheel on the road to Las Vegas.
Let’s get to it…