If you only saw the last ten minutes of RAW, and missed everything else, you saw the best part of the show. A largely forgettable and filler before WrestleMania RAW, with the highlights being the well-done ‘what move will you make/will you sell my finisher’ chess match between John Cena and Shawn Michaels. The ‘almost’ and ‘I could’ execute my finisher on you false finishes worked, and I wonder if they will finally “pull the trigger” next week with the tag-team match, Cena/HBK versus Batista and the Undertaker?
At least the Masterlock is finally broken, even though it’s been broken quite a few times where it ‘doesn’t count.’ Again, who cares about Chris Masters? And, who cares about Eugene? McMahon shaves his head, partially bald to get heel heat and goes nuts pretending he’s shaving Trump’s head. We haven’t been caring about Eugene for months, his inconsistency in his character, we don’t even know what week he’s a heel or a face. I hope this will give some edge to Eugene, because the guy can indeed wrestle, even when he has a character that doesn’t work.
What else…Edge re-wins the Money in the Bank Battle Royale match because he can hang out at ringside with a ‘injury’, and no one makes him go to the back to get checked out. That was stupid booking, but not shocking since Edge needs to stay in the Money in the Bank match. No one cares about the women’s match….too bad, I was expecting more of a shoot. I miss Mickie James.
Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton was good, though at times a little sloppy. The finish was appropriate because this is all about making more tension for Orton and Edge with Edge sliding the ladder in there for no apparent reason.
The main reasons to care about WrestleMania and RAW right now are HBK versus John Cena and the obvious possibility of Orton versus Edge in the Money in the Bank ladder match. Everything else falls behind those two storylines. I want to care more about Umaga and Lashley this week but sticking Lashley to break the Masterlock even with his monster pop and Umaga to squash Eugene (at least it wasn’t Jeff Hardy this week), did nothing to build up their actual match.
In your WrestleMania preperations, be sure to read Scott Keith’s look at Wrestlemania III.
Always remember, for things to change, you have to make movement. Thanks for reading and for all the feedback, feel free to contact me anytime at Bam@4sternstaging.com.
