WWE RAW: Results & Review (02.03.15)

We are into March and it is only a little more than a month until WrestleMania 31 in California. Last week was one of the times when I felt like I’d wasted time watching RAW, so I was hoping the Road to WrestleMania might take a more interesting and entertaining turn tonight, and I’m glad to say that, for the most-part, it did.

With the same old matches now being booked again, and some surprising things happening, this episode of RAW from New Jersey was good. It wasn’t great, but some of the parts of it were, and we’ll get into that in this column.

Match Results:

• Dean Ambrose defeated Bad News Barrett
• The Uso’s & Naomi beat Tyson Kidd, Cesaro & Natalya
• John Cena squashed Curtis Axel
• Paige beat Nikki Bella via DQ
• Daniel Bryan defeated Luke Harper
• Seth Rollins beat Roman Reigns

The opening segment of RAW this week saw Seth Rollins hit the ring with J&J Security and speak about his Twitter/TV scripted comedy war with Jon Stewart whom Seth called out for later in the night. Reigns interrupts Rollins and Rollins says he can out-wrestle him, which leads to J&J Security being beaten up while Rollins runs away. A match between the two is set up backstage in a later segment involving Randy Orton who tells Rollins that he can prove everyone wrong by defeating Reigns tonight. Orton is playing an Authority friend right now, but his smirks and winks to the camera are revealing of a fully-fledged face-turn soon. Seth had a segment in the ring in the middle of the show also, involving Jon Stewart. It was a comedy-heavy segment that ended with Rollins attempting to rough-up Stewart, Orton coming out to distract the situation and Stewart kicking Seth in the balls. It was one of the celebrity sequences that was done for media coverage alone. The main event of the show featured Rollins’ third appearance on the show for a match with Reigns. The two had a decent match which ended with Rollins winning with the help of Orton. Orton seems to be doing the infiltration thing with The Authority right now, gaining their trust only to kick their butt later. Reigns went ballistic after the match, taking out Kane, Big Show, J&J Security and Rollins with big power moves. The best booking of Reigns in 2015 so far.

AJ Lee returned to WWE television to make the save when Paige was being beaten down by Nikki and Brie Bella. The crowd popped for her return and then showered her with irritating chants of “CM Punk”. Paige and AJ appear to be doing the reluctant friend thing as a way to team against the Bella’s. Maybe this will be a match at WrestleMania?

The Intercontinental Title has been given some good promotion this week, and it’s great to see a title that held such prestige at one time being given the respect it should have been given consistently. Bad News Barrett is the champion who keeps having his belt stolen by people who feel they deserve to be champion. It’s simple but it works. This is leading to a multi-man I-C Title Ladder Match at WrestleMania. As it stands now, it looks likely that Barrett will be defending his hardware against Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, R Truth, Luke Harper and Dolph Ziggler. Maybe other will be added, but it is looking like a potential show-stealer right now. The segments and matches involving the belt and these men were my favourite parts of this episode of RAW, well… my favourite along with the segment I will speak about next.

Paul Heyman came to the ring to cut a promo about his client, Brock Lesnar, the WWE World Champion, about Roman Reigns, about Daniel Bryan, and about how Brock will lose the WWE World Title only when he feels like losing it. Another passionate promo from the best talker in WWE today, Heyman was great here. His microphone went dead a couple of times and he used to irritation to fuel his character even more, insulting New Jesey and Lillian Garcia as he threw his broken mic to the floor. The best talking segment of the night, and perhaps of the year so far.

John Cena had a segment in which he added himself to the Andre the Giant Battle Royale. Stephanie McMahon interrupted and told Cena that he isn’t going to be a part of WrestleMania. After squashing Curtis Axel, Rusev and Lana come out saying how they are the only chance that Cena had to work Mania, but Rusev refuses to wrestle Cena. Obviously the match will be made official soon.

Alundra Blayze (Medusa in WCW) was announced as an inductee into the 2015 WWE Hall of Fame, standing alongside currently announced inductees Randy Savage, The Bushwhackers, Rikishi and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Triple H did another promo in which he spoke about having power to remove legacies from history. He brings Booker T to the ring and ends up firing him, and then laughing it off and saying he was joking, and that he was proving a point. It was a segment to hype the Trips/Sting match in which Triple H is painting himself as the loyal WWE worker who is now a power-mad COO. Bray Wyatt also cut another promo on The Undertaker before lighting a casket on fire on the stage area. The announcers put over the nicknake of “The New Face of Fear” for Wyatt again here.

RAW was an interesting show tonight. They put plenty of promotion into the I-C Title section which I enjoyed, and Stephanie McMahon, Triple H and Paul Heyman all shined as usual on the microphone. Roman Reigns was even booked well as a fighter with minimal verbals. This was a leap forward from last week’s terrible show, but there is still plenty of work to do if WWE want to create a special hype for WrestleMania. So far, it feels like a show featuring a couple of big hype matches featuring guys who aren’t on TV to promote them (Brock, Sting, Taker). There needs to be more hype for the undercard, and for the younger guys. Until next week.

RAW: Best Match: Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins

RAW: Best Talker: Paul Heyman

RAW: Worst Match: Paige vs. Nikki Bella

RAW: Surprise of the Night: AJ Lee returns to RAW