‘Monday Night Raw’ recap: Whose side is Shawn Michaels on?
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
This week’s ‘Monday Night Raw’ was more of a placeholder than a story-line advancer as we near the April 1 WrestleMania pay-per-view.
There are three big matches at WrestleMania, so let’s take a look at all three and what happened this week.
1) Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk. Punk, unhappy that Jericho told the world last week that Punk’s father is an alcoholic, cut a solid promo vowing to prove he is the best in the world. Jericho appeared on screen and kicked Punk’s anger up a notch with a beautiful swerve. First, he appeared contrite and asked Punk to forgive him for dragging his father into this and vowed never to talk about his dad again. The crowd seemed to buy it, until Jericho said, ‘Your sister, on the other hand, is fair game.’ At this point the crowd in the arena audibly gasped. And whenever you can make a jaded pro-wrestling crowd, especially in Philadelphia (where this week’s ‘Raw’ took place), gasp, you know you’ve hit a home run.
2) John Cena vs. The Rock. Another pre-recorded promo from The Rock. Sure, he came out at the end of the Cena-Mark Henry match, but there really was little to get excited about this week. It was surprising the producers would put Cena in the ring with Henry though, because you would think WWE would want to make absolutely sure that Cena remains uninjured until WrestleMania.
3) Triple H vs. The Undertaker, with Shawn Michaels as special referee and another in-ring confrontation, featuring all three. There were some good moments, but I was left with a sense of ‘Let’s get to the match already.’ All three were great Monday night, but it seems like we’ve had variations of this from them for a couple of months now.
It will be interesting to see what happens next week in the go-home show before WrestleMania. There’s seemingly very little left to be done to promote the big three matches. Will it be another placeholder edition of ‘Monday Night Raw’, or does WWE have some surprises up its sleeve still? Time will tell.
RELATED:
‘Monday Night Raw’: Cena outshines Rock
‘Monday Night Raw’: The Rock strikes back
-- Houston Mitchell