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TUCKER'S LIVE INSTANT REACTION - Post-Mania Raw 3/30: Suddenly, there's a mid-card, but what about the main event scene?

Mar 31, 2015 - 2:32:06 AM
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Live Instant Reaction - WWE Raw 3/30
By Ben Tucker, PWTorch TV specialist


Overall Score - 8.5

Coming out of WrestleMania, WWE is quickly developing a hot mid-card and a main event scene severely lacking one Brock Lesnar. As John Cena and Daniel Bryan have transitioned into apparent gatekeeper roles for the mid-card and Brock Lesnar in 24 hours goes from being the company's biggest heel to their biggest face to disappearing for the next four months, the main event is left floundering with the same mixture of players we've seen for the last several months. (See the main event post-Lesnar "suspension.")

Tonight's Raw re-established Roman Reigns and Randy Orton as the top two WWE Title challengers with Ryback as an emergency substitute. But, given management's start-stop treatment towards Ryback and the vehement hatred towards Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins's title reign has begun with a ton of sizzle but only one or two bites of steak. Tonight's Raw highlighted this dilemma, while also making the mid-card feel like "the" place to be for the first time in years.

Of course, a lot of this feeling was accomplished by hot-shotting two major PPV title matches in one night (Ziggler-Bryan and Cena-Ambrose) and introducing both the Lucha Dragons and (the now Adrian-less) Neville to the main roster. For this one night it worked wonders, giving Raw a true sense of "anything can happen." The crowd was receptive to everything on display and, aside from certain tasteless chants targeted towards the Divas, managed to serve as one of the highlights of the show.

The feeling of unpredictability brought on by these segments matched up well with Brock Lesnar's demolishing of the Raw announce team. Brock left looking superhuman; nearly too superhuman, as his replacement (Orton) doesn't hold nearly as much star power.

Unfortunately, a lot of stories from WrestleMania felt completely dropped tonight. Sting's post-Raw promo made no mention of overthrowing The Authority, Bray Wyatt was non-existent, and most importantly Roman Reigns came across like just another voiceless cog in the machine... that 20,000 people despised. It does not help Roman that he appears visibly upset by these chants every time they start up. Tough as it may be, his sour demeanor is only encouraging the rage against him. In the main event, Ryback was the only one who knew how to steer the crowd, encouraging chants of "Please retire" to Big Show. While not optimum, it prevented NXT chants and jeers towards Reigns while targeting the heels and getting Ryback massively over with the fans. If you want a good guy fans can latch onto, you've got one.

Raw wasn't perfect, but at least from a live perspective it was a lot of fun. The mid-card has stories! With actual stars! And a whole host of fantastic matches coming ahead! While the main event scene post-Lesnar licks its wounds, the post-WrestleMania Raw was strong enough as a whole to give it a very large recommendation.

Questions? Comments? Reactions? Find me on Twitter @BTuckerTorch, where I talk about wrestling and... stuff!


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