7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (9 March - Results & Review)

1. A Cartoonish, Clownish Angle

The masked man angle certainly won’t go down in WWE history as one of their better angles, but they are bleeding that stone dry to make sure that most people won’t even consider it good.

Raw opened with GM Adam Pearce in the ring, asking for Seth Rollins to come out. Instead, about 20 masked men showed up at ringside and did their best Retribution impersonation, running around, banging on the mat, and looking like chaotic dopes. (The fans chanted, “Holy sh**” at this, making them either extremely sarcastic or extremely insane.)

Rollins unmasked drew a huge pop, as apparently Seth has figured out that the only way to get that Pavlovian fan response outside of singing his song is to show up under a hood and reveal himself. Pearce pleaded with him to cease and desist, but The Vision (or its remnants) showed up, prompting Rollins to don his hood again and have all the masked morons run around to cause confusion, allowing everyone to flee.

This absolutely does not scream “WrestleMania feud”; it barely registers as a B-PLE feud at this stage. Maybe if Bron Breakker shows up and starts trucking masked men with reckless abandon, this will heat up, but this is so silly, and there isn’t even a Vision left for Rollins to rage against.

It almost would be easier if they just wrote the rest of the stable off and had Seth Rollins sit on the sidelines or hosted 'Mania.