Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: March 3, 2014

It’s better than any other title I could come up with.

The Punk music to open the show was a brilliant move. You had to let those fans let off some steam and putting one of their idols in Paul Heyman out there was one of their best options. Paul talking about Punk like a Paul Heyman Guy again was the best way they were going to calm the fans down because Heyman is capable of taking an audience into his hands and make them do whatever he wants. The reaction when Heyman said that Punk wasn’t there was a great moment with the fans being calmed down but then getting angry all over again.

Then they one upped that by transitioning the heat over from Punk to Lesnar vs. Undertaker by tying the stories together. It didn’t do as well as they would have liked, but the fans weren’t freaking out as much about Punk and got into another idea. I wasn’t wild on Mark Henry coming out to confront Lesnar again as it’s just getting old, but that shot with the steps made me cringe.

The Usos FINALLY won the Tag Titles and I can’t complain about much here. I wasn’t wild on the Outlaws winning the belts but I said I didn’t care as long as they were transitional champions. I could have waited for Wrestlemania for this but they had to do something to keep the crowd calm. The moment worked well and felt like it was a long time in the making. That plancha with a tag in the middle is freaking cool.

I’ll combine the Big E./Real Americans segments into one. It’s getting clear that the team isn’t long for this WWE but I’m not sure how they’re going to get there. Cesaro is getting way too popular to be in a jobbing tag team much longer but I’m not sure how they go about breaking the team up. Big E. has nothing else to do so you would have to assume he’s involved with them at Wrestlemania, but I can’t imagine they’re doing a triple threat. Cesaro winning makes more sense, but at the same time Swagger seems to be the more likely winner. Good developments last night though and the first real sign of a split between the team.

Next up was Shield vs. Wyatts II as the fans continue to be appeased. The match was nowhere near as good as their first encounter but it wasn’t a fair comparison to make. This match was all about the storytelling with Rollins going INSANE and then breaking away from the team. He was clearly upset by what he did but the team had to split someday. You would think Shield vs. Wyatts in a street fight would be as easy of a layup as you could have and there’s a chance it happens at Extreme Rules but it doesn’t look all that likely right now.

Rollins bailing from the team makes sense given how he’s been presented as the glue that holds the team together. That being said, the other two played their roles perfectly. The Wyatts kept Reigns out of the match for as long as they could, similar to what the Horsemen did to the Giant when they feuded with the Dungeon of Doom back in 1996. Ambrose looked INSANE last night when he was diving on people and punching the tar out of them. That’s the Ambrose that got over huge and the Ambrose that the Undertaker picked for a singles match last year in England. Also, he put on a better Figure Four than Miz could ever dream of.

Batista had a quick promo about Daniel Bryan. “Deal With It” grows on me more and more every time I hear it.

The dancing match happened and that’s really all there is to say. Emma is slowly winning the crowd over as she’s allowed to be herself and not Santino’s latest conquest. Imagine that: you let someone do the stuff that got her to the main roster and it works better.

So then there was that segment where Stephanie talked about showing her daughters great moments in McMahon history which showed the problem with WWE’s “Real Talk” moments. That segment felt endearing, sweet and kind and served as a good ad for the Network. Yeah, it’s a cool idea for parents to be able to show their kids the stuff they grew up watching and I’d do that if I had kids who were into wrestling, but it’s coming from Stephanie McMahon.

That would be the same Stephanie McMahon who is currently one of the top heels in the company and would be ripping Daniel Bryan apart just an hour later. Last night I was waiting for that segment to turn into a heel promo against someone, but it was one of those moments that was supposed to be serious. You don’t have heels do sweet stuff like that because it gets them sympathy, which defeats the purpose. Have ANY face with kids do that same speech and it works just fine. But this is WWE, where Stephanie and HHH are heels but also the kind of people we’re supposed to relate to and admire because…..why is that actually?

Sheamus and Christian had another match, then they set up yet another match. Again, there seems to be no idea how to book Sheamus and it’s getting more and more tiresome each time. At least the match wasn’t bad though.

The Divas…..yeah.

This brings us to the big showdown between HHH and Bryan. In theory they’re setting up Bryan vs. HHH, but later in the night they seemed to be setting up Bryan in the triple threat for the title. That being said, the Bryan speech worked well and got the crowd into them again, but there’s one key thing to this: HHH AND STEPHANIE ACTED LIKE HEELS. I could get behind this version of the Authority being evil to the fans and then getting their comeuppance down the line. The problem is will they ever get that comeuppance.

It’s clear that they’re going towards one of those two matches, but at the same time it seems like they’re heading to both of them at the same time. For the life of me I can’t imagine Bryan beating HHH to qualify for the title match later in the night. They need to pick one: either Bryan knees HHH’s head into the Gulf of Mexico or pinning Batista to win the title. The idea of doing both just doesn’t quite work, but the triple threat makes more sense. At the end of the day they’re just not going to go with heel Orton vs. heel Batista to close out Wrestlemania and they’d be crazy to have the match at all. I think they’re going with the triple threat but it’s still up in the air.

Aaron Paul’s guest star segment was fine. There’s only so much you can do with stuff like that and it worked as well as it could have.

Paul Bearer going into the Hall of Fame works and was going to happen one day. I do like that the class this year is far smaller as they’re looking at 5-6 entrants at this point.

The Cena promo was good stuff. He acknowledged the fans’ chants (which is all they’re really wanting) and tied it in to the Wyatt feud, which is the best possible thing he could have done. Bray talking about Cena being lonely on top is an interesting way to go as Bray could get psychological on Cena, who is as well guarded a character as there is. Also: Cena continues to take Wyatt seriously, which is the most important thing he could do.

I’ve pretty much covered the main event already and there isn’t much else to say on it. Bryan won but the story was the post match stuff, as is almost the case every single time.

Now that leaves us with the big story from last night: the crowd. There’s only one way to explain this crowd, so join me in 1979.

Odds are a lot of you have seen the movie The Jerk. In the movie, Steve Martin goes on a rant about how he doesn’t need anybody or anything…..except for this. And this. Plus this. Maybe this too. And a few other things.

The Chicago crowd last night absolutely hated WWE and Raw in general. Except for Undertaker. Brock Lesnar. Dolph Ziggler and Aaron Paul because they’re just cool. Shield vs. Wyatts because they’re all awesome. Uh….Cena isn’t bad. Heyman is of course a genius. Daniel Bryan isn’t even worth bringing up because he’s the best in the world. Oh the Usos winning the titles was a cool moment. Christian is awesome so we can’t boo him. You can’t boo the Divas because they look good. Cesaro is freaking STRONG. But yeah, WWE sucks right now and they’re holding everyone down and we need to protest!

The fans came off like spoiled children who get 14 out of the 15 items on their Christmas lists and throw a fit because they didn’t get that ONE last thing……until their parents open the closet and find a surprise package. That’s the catch to this whole thing about Bryan: HE DOESN’T HAVE A MATCH YET. If you were just listening to people talking about Bryan, you would think he’s on the preshow against Heath Slater. He’s going to be in one of the main events and there’s a very real chance he’s walking out as WWE Champion. The card is going to rock (Taker vs. Lesnar, Shield explodes, Cena vs. Wyatt, Cesaro swinging someone around for an hour. How is that not going to be AMAZING?) but because ONE THING isn’t there, the fans think it’s time for a revolution.

Actually there are two things they might not be getting in Bryan and the biggest name from last night, CM Punk. As has been said about a million times, Punk isn’t a martyr. He’s a guy who wasn’t getting what he wanted in WWE and walked out two months before their biggest show of the year. The fans can act like this is all WWE’s fault because fans aren’t realistic (and shouldn’t be), but at the end of the day CM Punk walked out because he didn’t want anything but the main event at Wrestlemania. If he comes back and gets into the title picture then cool, but don’t act like he’s doing this for some cause, because it’s pretty clear he isn’t.

Overall the show was more story advancement for the most part, which is interesting stuff given that there are still so many loose ends. There are still two options, but both of them are looking less and less likely, leaving us with one of two weak options. There’s still a month before the show but they need to pick something already so they can build the thing up. Maybe that’s what Hogan’s announcement next week will be? Good show overall but they need to pick something already.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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