(Wade Keller's full report on this week's Raw plus added analysis with more thoughts and select key quotes was posted exclusively on the PWTorch VIP website and VIP mobile site on Monday night. Subscribe here to go VIP: PWTorch.com/GoVIP)

-- John Cena's opening promo would have benefited from being trimmed by 25 percent in length, but such is the case in this bloated three-hour Raw era. In the end, he wanted to sell the idea that he will "shock the world," but that teaser of a turn or change in attitude was somewhat lost among the bloated promo. The comments were a proverbial dog whistle to hardcore fans who were convinced, or at least intrigued, by the hints Cena gave that he's going to have a new attitude on Sunday.

-- Also, Cena rarely looks flustered or confronted with the unexpected, since he's embraced the boos and stood tall up against The Rock the last two years, but the "boring" chant clearly surprised him and his facial expressions revealed in just a few seconds that he was trying to decide how to react and whether to sell it or talk over it.

-- On the flipside, The Rock was on his game in his promo segment. It was better to give him the last word and not have him in there against Cena where his focus was on standing tall and confident in front of Cena pelting him with lines about taking digs at his mother last year. Instead, Rock got to be a big star who countered his image as Mr. Hollywood by making it all about the fans. It's a smart approach, and the framing of the match is intriguing - with Cole saying Rock is confident and Cena feels immense pressure to win. That promo went about nine minutes, a few minutes shorter than Cena's earlier, and it felt just right. Rock seemed to gain confidence every minute that went by when it was clear D.C. had his back.

-- Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman were great raising the stakes and painting a picture of pending destruction for Triple H at WrestleMania. WWE didn't give Shawn Michaels a long time to talk before Hunter walked out. They could have gone down the road of being overly corny or sappy here, but they actually kept this from going on too long. In 12 minutes, they fit in three segments - Michaels talking alone, Hunter and Michaels talking together, and Heyman's final heel promo.

-- Regarding the end of Raw with C.M. Punk and Paul Heyman playing mind-games with The Undertaker with another Paul Bearer "tribute," it's risky to incorporate a real-life death this much into a storyline, but when the heels are scripted to make fun of him with a borderline comedy impersonation of him, it's even more risky. The worst part is that when Heyman first walked out like Bearer and they played "Ohhhh yes!" over the sound system, they might have tricked some fans and viewers into thinking Bearer wasn't really dead. I've even gotten that question via email.

-- Also regarding Taker-Punk, I wonder what we missed out in terms of how this match would have been promoted had William Moody not died just over a month before WrestleMania. Was Plan A really inferior to going this route by having the last hard-sell for WrestleMania be the implication that Punk poured Paul Bearer's ashes on Taker's chest? I get that Bearer was a fictional character and when actors on TV shows die, they write off the character they played on the TV show. This, though, in the context of pro wrestling and using the emotions and memory of the character to sell a fight on a pay-per-view, it just runs a big risk of rubbing people the wrong way and giving them a distaste for the WWE brand for choosing to go that route, both because it seems both tacky and desperate, if not completely disrespectful.

(Wade Keller's full report on this week's Raw plus added analysis with more thoughts and select key quotes was posted exclusively on the PWTorch VIP website and VIP mobile site on Monday night. Subscribe here to go VIP: PWTorch.com/GoVIP)

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