This week’s Raw was quite better than last week’s episode and it had been a great build up for both Fastlane and WrestleMania storylines.
Since this was the final week before Fastlane the card is now set. In our opinion, this has the best match card of all Raw exclusive pay per view event since the brand split. Yes, it is a little controversial to say but we will explain ourselves in a different article.
The biggest problem of this week was so many jobbers were included in different matches and they literally jobbed. It made things really predictable in cases, and it also shows the biggest con of a three-hour weekly show.
The beginning promo between Goldberg and Kevin Owens was quite a good one and arguably the best promo for the night. Kevin Owens did a decent job on the mic just like he did last week. This promo worked for Fastlane and it also created hype for WrestleMania.
As we were saying, it was a jobber filled week, with the Shining Stars in action after quite a while. It feels really bad to see Rusev turning into a jobber. Every week he jobs to either Enzo and Cass or the New Day. New Day who does not even have a good storyline to work in right now are beating Rusev and his jobber partner, Jinder Mahal, every week.
It also felt bad to see Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson jobbing every week. We do not understand if this is the price to pay to become the tag team champions. For the past couple of weeks, they jobbed to Roman Reigns, this week Luke Gallows lost to Big Cass. We still hope they carry the tag team titles to WrestleMania.
The Women’s segments and matches are nothing special from this week. It was pretty similar to every week of Raw. This is where Raw lacks and Smackdown is way better, with a better roster than Smackdown Raw is failing to capitalise and giving similar storylines every time.
Seth Rollins’ return was one of the best parts of the show and the confrontation with Triple H was literally amazing. It seems like Seth will be medically okay for WrestleMania and we will have the match we all waited for.
The best match of the night was between Samoa Joe and Cesaro. The match was booked to push Joe which is good but Cesaro jobbing every week is not good for business. Even in this match, Cesaro proved what an excellent athlete he is. After the match, Joe explained his attacks on Sami Zayn. This is where they failed to build up a good feud, Joe said that he was here to hurt people, that was why he attacked Sami. Then why Sami? You could attack anyone, you could even attack Roman Reigns. Why you chose Sami? Really poor build up we must say.
The ending segment was bad. It was supposed to be a contract signing but it turned out to be a brawl, which is not bad but the way it happened was not a good sign. Funny that none of the wrestlers approached for the contract but they straight went for a fight. Mick Foley demanding respect from Braun as he claims himself to be a legend is also a poor piece of booking.
Final Verdict – Overall, it was a good show, even though in some aspects in turned a little boring. But you cannot expect much from a three-hour show with a fragile roster.
Sportzwiki Ratings – 3/5