Seth Rollins gives his Sermon; later in the night, his Disciples Murphy and The AOP take on Kevin Owens and The Viking Raiders but it’s broken up by Rollins, Ending in a Disqualification
It was genius for WWE to have Rollins give a Sermon and to have Paul Heyman portray the Monday Night Messiah with a religious element. This will get Seth over as a heel in a major way, because the commentary team is right; all Seth is right now is a narcissist who wants Monday Night Raw to revolve around him, and he is masquerading as a Messiah.
One would be reasonable to imagine that Rollins and Murphy will lose the Raw Tag Team Championships a few weeks before ‘Mana, possibly even at the Elimination Chamber PPV on March 8. This will free up both men to work singles programs leading to WrestleMania as I personally believe they are more valuable assets to WWE as singles competitors as opposed to a tag team. Murphy and Rollins may even work a WrestleMania 36 storyline with each other.
This would make total sense because there is an easy story to tell. They could lose their titles to a younger team on the rise in the form of The Street Profits at Super Showdown. They could blame each other for the miscommunication, leading to a clash between Seth Rollins and Murphy at the biggest event of the year on April 5 in Tampa Bay.
Randy Orton viciously attacks Matt Hardy after delivering a Cryptic Promo
Randy Orton is a master at ring psychology and feeling out what a crowd needs in order to get emotionally invested in a storyline. This heinous attack was most likely done to write Matt Hardy off TV because his WWE contract expires on March 1. He will most likely go to AEW where he will have more creative freedom. This will be good for Hardy who is one of the most creative minds in wrestling.
This attack will benefit Randy Orton significantly because it ensures he is one of the most hated and relevant heels in WWE for the next several months and perhaps even longer. Orton has now attacked two superstars who the WWE universe has been attached to for a very long time in Edge and now Matt Hardy.
Charlotte Flair points out how entitled Rhea Ripley is because she hasn’t had to Struggle as much as Charlotte has
Flair did some of her best work on the microphone to date. She pointed out something that has a lot of truth to it, and because of this, fans most likely resonated with the message.
Ricochet defeats Karl Anderson; AJ Styles returns to Raw
Nothing about the match itself was very surprising. The result was never in doubt because the number one contender to the WWE Championship would never lose right before a Pay-Per-View. The same cannot be said regarding the return of Styles, which was much earlier than expected. Smart fans would not have anticipated him to be back for at least another month after injuring his shoulder at the Royal Rumble. Shoulder injuries are not easy to come back from (ask Finn Balor).
As reported by Dave Meltzer, Styles is slated to wrestle The Undertaker at WrestleMania 36 in Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It will be nice to see The Undertaker back in action at ‘Mania after taking WrestleMania 35 off. The Deadman feels AJ is “the modern-day Shawn Michaels,” which is probably accurate. This is due to his ability to do just about anything that is asked of him in the ring as well as his level of fluidity with the sports entertainment industry with over 20 years of experience.
Angel Garza and Bobby Lashley defeat Rusev and Humberto Carillo
Garza and Rusev were easily the two superstars who stood out in this match. It’s amazing that the WWE universe still has the attention span to remember Rusev Day so vividly and continue to chant it like they did this past week. This is an era of short attention spans after all due to social media in large part. Based on this, Vince McMahon can draw the conclusion that Rusev is a major star and all Mr. McMahon needs to do is give Paul Heyman the green light to make him a major superstar, possibly even a champion.
Rusev’s connection with the WWE universe needs to be taken advantage of because fans don’t latch onto a character like this very often.
On the other hand, Angel Garza has the potential to turn into the next Eddie Guerrero type of Latino character, but he needs a little more time to acclimate the WWE universe to his personality. After all, he is still relatively new. He is kind of reminiscent of a newer version of Chavo Guerrero, but he has the potential for sure to turn into Eddie. Angel needs to add a more serious element to his character rather than just as a lady’s man which would make the audience more deeply connect with him.
Aleister Black defeats Erick Rowan
WWE may want to seriously consider building up Aleister Black similar to what WCW did with Goldberg a little over 20 years ago. This could be done by continuing his undefeated streak against opponents who are legitimately credible for the remainder of 2020. It would also build on his mystique. Rowan might want to just discard his cage; at this point no one cares much about what’s in it and it serves almost as a distraction more than anything.
Brock Lesnar’s impressive Attendance Record in 2020
The Beast is still a part-timer since returning to WWE in 2012, but he has a great track record for 2020 through the first of the year. Brock has shown up in some form on every episode of Raw in 2020 except for two – February 10 and February 17. However, he is now advertised for the February 24 and March 2 episodes. Lesnar also entered the Royal Rumble match at number one, lasting over 25 minutes before being eliminated by the eventual winner Drew McIntyre.
This significantly helps his advocate Paul Heyman (who is the Executive Director of Raw). Having Lesnar on the show every week makes it significantly more interesting. He creates an unspoken aura of legitimacy as a former UFC Heavyweight Champion. No one else on the roster has enough credibility to provide this at the moment. He is Raw’s top titleholder as the WWE Champion.
Even without Brock Lesnar, this past week’s edition of Raw was still very successful as it managed to draw the most TV viewers of any episode in 2020. MVP also wrestled his final match on Raw, putting over Drew McIntyre