By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
WWE Raw Hits
Cody Rhodes and John Cena: Cena’s promo was too similar to his initial heel promo from last week. He has turned on the fans and apparently man of the people Cody represents the fans. Even so, it would be nice if Cena made things feel more personal between him and Cody as opposed to putting everything on the fans. And then there’s the issue of neither man mentioning The Rock’s involvement. While I didn’t mind it last week because Cena’s first heel promo in many years should have been about him, it now feels strange that neither man is bringing up The Final Boss character. Ultimately, the charm of Cena playing a heel character after all these years and Cody’s fiery rebuttal was enough to keep this segment in the Hit section. Here’s hoping that they start to expand beyond Cena’s anger with the fans.
Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso vs. Austin Theory and Grayson Waller: The decision to bill Jey as teaming with a mystery partner as opposed to simply promoting an Usos reunion seems odd. The match was solid and the heel duo did a really nice job of selling for the Usos. The post match angle with Jey slipping when he tried to spear Gunther was wonky. The idea seems to be that Jey is down on his luck and full of doubt… again.
CM Punk promo: Punk established that he wants to take out Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins because they are the two people standing in the way of him achieving his dream of headlining WrestleMania. Punk’s delivery was strong, but the brawl on Friday’s Smackdown didn’t leave him with a lot of new material to work with. Punk has said just about everything there is to say about his issues with Seth Rollins, and there’s limited history between Punk and Reigns.
Lyra Valkyria vs. Raquel Rodriguez for the Women’s Intercontinental Title: Another soft Hit for Valkyria getting a decent win that should have meant more. Rodriguez is one of the bigger women in the division and she’s one-half of the tag team champions. Yet Rodriguez has been pushed as such an afterthought as a singles wrestler that Valkyria didn’t really gain anything from beating her. Nevertheless, it feels like Valkyria is slowly starting to connect with the audience. Her persona feels vanilla, but her ring work seems to be winning over a lot of fans.
El Grande Americano vs. Dragon Lee: A soft Hit for an entertaining match with good work from both wrestlers. There are early flaws with the Americano act. Comedy characters typically don’t generate heat. Although Americano may legitimately upset some lucha fans, WWE fans seem likely to enjoy the humor, perhaps even enough that they could end up cheering for the character. If so, that’s going to make things difficult for the babyfaces who have to work with him. Americano pulling off Lee’s mask was a good heat spot. Can the company come up with enough similar spots to prevent fans from siding with Americano? Or is it simply more trouble than it’s worth to have heel comedy characters?
WWE Raw Misses
Bron Breakker vs. Penta for the Intercontinental Title: The company failed to make this feel like a big television main event throughout the show and then it didn’t even get the in-ring introductions that other main event championship matches receive. Perhaps it’s because they had a shit finish in mind with Dominik Mysterio attacking Breakker for the lazy disqualification. The final shot of the weak Judgment Day male trio standing tall was a groaner, in part because I couldn’t care less about Breakker or Penta getting revenge on three wrestlers who are booked as pushovers. Oh, sure, they’ll try to heat up Balor the next time it’s his turn to lose a title match, but he’s a damaged character. At one point does the creative team start the build to whatever the Intercontinental Title match is going to be at WrestleMania? Please tell me this wasn’t it because I have no interest in seeing Breakker work against The Judgment Day men on the big stage.
WrestleMania 41 build: It was understandable when the first two weeks of television coming out of the Elimination Chamber event were underwhelming because there was so much time until WrestleMania. So what’s the excuse now that WrestleMania is under a month away? I’m sure WrestleMania will be a fun two-night show, but the lineup of advertised matches feels underwhelming.
They took a sure thing in Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair and opted to shoehorn Iyo Sky into the storyline and presumably into the WrestleMania match. Like the women’s match, Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins should be a strong three-way, but this is WrestleMania. Fans rightfully expect singles showdown matches, not Triple Threats that feel like they could be big television main events where the company takes the easy way out by having the weakest link take the pin. The build to Gunther vs. Jey Uso feels like it peaked too soon. Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair feels ice cold. We have no idea what the men’s Intercontinental or U.S. Title matches even are at this point.
There’s no denying that the booking has dramatically improved since Paul Levesque took over. I want to give him and his team the benefit of the doubt and hope that it will all come together during the final weeks of television before WrestleMania. But with only three Raws and four Smackdowns remaining to push a card that looks underwhelming on paper, I just don’t know if they can pull it off.
My guess is we won’t see the IC title defended at all, it will be a six-man tag with Judgement Day vs. Breakker, Penta and someone else.
Your guess absolutely sucks! But it might be right.
It’s gonna be a four way most likely with Dom pinning Finn I bet to create even more tension.