-WWE did an excellent job recapping last week's close to Raw with a well edited and dramatic video package. It was effective in reminding everyone just how menacing The Rock was -- a smart move to combat an obvious jolt of a positive reaction once he appeared in front of the live audience this week. That's going to be a problem WWE is going to have to dodge until Rock is a babyface again, but little things like strong production can help deaden that reaction a bit if nothing else.
Find the narrative quicker, Rock
-As for The Rock starting the show, it went about as good as could be expected. I mean, Rock is going to Rock and we saw that out there with him essentially flaming his own cheers at the expense of the broad narrative. Eventually, he brought things around and got the heel heat that he wanted. Why he chooses to play in the danger zone is beyond me, but hey, it's Rock.
-This was the best Roman Reigns we've seen since the build to WrestleMania began. Roman looked confident (overconfident?), he talked well, and he looked like an alpha alongside The Rock. The Rock was also better dealing with Reigns this week. Watch the promo back. Rock stands aside while Roman takes center stage and it feels a bit bizarre to see. That said, it helped emphasize Reigns as the champion and leader of The Bloodline.
-Time for Seth Rollins to get his flowers. Rollins brought out Serious Seth this week opposite The Bloodline and he's always better in that spot. I'm sure he'll have some crazy get-up at WrestleMania, but he should remember that people connect best with a serious, feisty Rollins.
Let’s hear from them
-Oh, it was a fine multi-person tag match this week -- a match that existed to hype the ladder match at WrestleMania, but really it shined a light on the fact that there hasn't been much hype at all for this. They will be splitting the tag titles in the ladder match at WrestleMania. One set of titles will be pulled down first and then the second next, crowning two new champions in one match. With so much on the line, WWE has to let the audience hear from these teams. The teams talking changes the bout from gimmick spot fest to a match with deep meaning.
-I got a kick out of the Chad Gable and Sami Zayn training video. Look, it could have and would have been awful in a Vince McMahon-led WWE, but the serious tone very much made it work. Sami as the underdog against Gunther is the right story and WWE leaned into that with the angle this week on Raw. Gunther was dismissive and dominant over Zayn when attacking him, but Zayn gave Gunther a taste of his fighting spirit when refusing to stay down after getting beat up. This is the right story to tell and the two perfect talents to tell it.
-So, are we seeing the demise of The Judgement Day? Dominik getting a little too big for his britches perhaps? I'm interested. There is a way for Damian Priest to turn babyface out of this and still surround Dom with a group of heels -- namely Santos Escobar and Andrade. Compelling stuff and an easy story for WWE continue coming out of WrestleMania.
Crickets
-Let me state the obvious -- you don't want to be able to hear a pin drop during pro wrestling events. That's not a good sign and why the Candice LeRae heel business is DOA. The audience in multiple cities now are not reacting to this story. At all. WWE is swimming upstream with this one.
-Drew McIntyre is relentless. Amazing, but relentless. The pre-tape this week with Drew looking over a coffin and running down Seth Rollins and CM Punk was wonderful. He tossed out some rough digs at both guys, which is going to make for strong business when it comes time for the matches to happen. Drew has stepped up his game since the Royal Rumble and is now ready to carry the Raw brand after WrestleMania.
-A Ricochet push has arrived. To what end? Well, that's the question. WWE Speed starts this week. Could he be positioned as the face of that brand? Not out of the realm of possibility.
Less is more?
-WWE went with the less is more approach with the final hype for Becky Lynch vs. Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania. The crowd reactions were too tough for WWE to navigate in the end and the Rhea Ripley tidal wave of popularity hurt the build. In the end, this is a good problem to have because Ripley is a huge star, but they don't have much of a story for this match that people are actually buying. The segment this week drilled it down to big star vs. big star wanting to fight. For better or worse, that's what they executed.
-Seth Rollins vs. Solo Sikoa was a fine main event that really needed to have a finish of some kind. Like, it's the main event. Do a finish. I know they had the big beat down angle with Rock and Reigns, but that could have been done in the exact same way even with a finish. WWE should not condition fans to expect no outcomes in these big matches.
Bring the heat
-As for the beat down angle, thumbs way up. You could argue that Cody Rhodes needed some big comeuppance after last week, but he got it here. It came in the form of him beating up The Rock and only stopping because Roman Reigns attacked him from behind. The idea with all this is to get heat on Rock and Reigns. The story for WrestleMania on Saturday and Sunday is rooted in that psychology, so it was smart for WWE to play that card again this week even if the show ended exactly like last week. They are setting up a mountain for Cody to climb this weekend and this angle was an attempt to make that mountain steeper. They succeeded. Plus, Cody got a huge pop for his run out, which is icing on the cake.
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From a zoomed out perspective, I thought every match and every segment had a purpose. Every thing on the show appears to have direction. Even the angles that are not working (The Candace and Indy story) are going somewhere.
Probably what I appreciate most about the current booking strategy is the strategic manner in which each angle and story has been unraveled with the overall design of peaking going into WrestleMania. The main event story and Becky and Rhea story were revealed slowly, allowing fans
to build anticipation for the next step of the story and the eventual physicality between the combatants. The Sami crisis of confidence story hat been playing out slowly over the last few months and right now it feels ripe. WWE it booking stories with a storyboard template and a calendar. While this seems like an obvious strategy, it has been frequently neglected on weekly episodic wrestling television for the lion's share of the genre’s existence.