Solid, if not above average edition of Raw.
Both Cena promos were really good and probably the best promos he's cut all year. Finally we have some heat between him & The Rock, I was getting tired of him bagging out The Rock but trying to balance the insult with a compliment. Hate the guy, nobody else is going to care about the feud unless you do. Overall, both promos did a good job of getting Cena over.
I thought it was stupid that they buried Santino after he had all that momentum at the Chamber. Having him tap in a minute to Bryan was like something you would see out of WCW. I know they had to get Bryan over, but why not have him do that to somebody expendable like Kahli?
Happy to see the Lauranaitis/Long feud continue. I think this is a smart way to fill the Mania undercard with workers who otherwise would have been on the show had it not been for all the returning legends. Good idea but it will be interesting to see if they'll do this AND a Money in the Bank match on the same show.
Hunter/Taker promo was good and as I was saying to a friend of mine, the only way I could ever care about this match is if they made it a Hell in a Cell match. Low and behold that's the exact direction we go with and we're preparing for what should be a really interesting match.
And I thought the Battle Royal was so stupid on a lot of levels. The most popular issue at the moment was the amount of casualties. A lot of wrestlers, particularly Wade Barrett looked worse for wear in a match that should otherwise be harmless. As unfortunate as the Barrett injury was, I couldn't believe how stupid the performers were to toss Santino out onto medics.
I also didn't like how this was the tv show in a row where we received a battle royal. I think these matches for the most part are terrible but I can tolerate them once in a blue moon, otherwise it's overkill.
Finally, what a crummy way to decide your No. 1 contender for your big championship match on the biggest show of the year. Surely they could have thought of something better like Jericho facing The Miz in a No. 1 contender's match or just straight out having Jericho call Punk out and challenging him to a match at Mania. Anything would have been a better choice than the Battle Royal.
With that said, I enjoyed hearing Punk on commentary again and his back and forth with Cole was great.
