The road to WrestleMania 41 is almost at its final destination. The tension backstage and in the ring is visibly starting to boil over. With just twelve days left until WWE takes over Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, last night's episode of Monday Night Raw felt like a massive stress test for the creative team.
When you are this close to the biggest show of the year, every single segment is heavily scrutinized. You either hit a home run to sell tickets, or you completely derail the momentum you have spent months building.
Last night’s three-hour marathon was a perfect microcosm of everything right and everything deeply wrong with modern WWE. We got gritty, blood-feud promos that belong in a museum, alongside baffling booking decisions that feel ripped straight out of a forgotten 2010 episode of Superstars.
It was a broadcast that swung wildly between absolute brilliance and sleep-inducing filler. As we brace ourselves for the final push toward Vegas, here are three things we absolutely loved from last night's Raw, and three things that had us shouting at our televisions.
Loved: Punk and Rollins finally taking the gloves off
We are exactly twelve days away from WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, and last night’s Raw delivered exactly what we needed from CM Punk and Seth Rollins. There were no goofy backstage skits involving QR codes or forced monologues about the sanctity of the business. Instead, we got two guys who legitimately seem to despise each other airing their real-life grievances in the ring.
Punk bringing up Rollins' increasingly absurd wardrobe choices was a cheap, easy pop. But Seth firing back about Punk's fragile body and inability to finish a major program hit like a freight train. You could literally feel the air leave the arena when Rollins dropped that line.
When the microphones dropped and the fists started flying, the live crowd lost their collective minds. The brawl felt wonderfully gritty and unpolished. Security guards were tossed over the barricade while producers screamed for order. Punk hitting a desperate roundhouse kick that connected flush on Rollins' jaw was the perfect exclamation point to sell a WrestleMania co-main event.
Hated: The Women's Tag Division is a baffling disaster
I feel like a broken record typing this out every single month, but what exactly is the creative plan for the Women's Tag Team Championships? We were subjected to a frankly embarrassing three-minute squash match last night that did absolutely nothing for anyone involved. The actual champions were not even booked to appear on the broadcast.
While Mercedes Mone is making international headlines vacating titles, the division she literally helped drag into existence in WWE is currently on life support. Throwing two random singles stars together who have zero chemistry is classic, infuriating WWE laziness. Chelsea Green is trying her absolute hardest to make chicken salad out of chicken nonsense, but she can only do so much on her own.
With the biggest event of the year happening next week, the tag titles feel like an absolute afterthought. They are functioning as a cheap prop to get people on the card rather than a prize worth fighting for. It is infuriating to watch genuinely talented women get sidelined in the back while we get another hastily thrown-together tag match ending in a distraction roll-up.
Loved: Cena passing the torch to the Ring General
John Cena's farewell tour has been an emotional, nostalgic rollercoaster for the last few months. Last night, however, felt significantly more important than a standard legacy lap. Having Cena stand face-to-face with Gunther was a surreal clash of generations and wrestling philosophies.
The contrast between the two men was brilliant television. You had Cena in his bright neon gear, smiling and playing to the crowd, standing across from a massive Austrian who looks like he wants to systematically dismantle him. The Ring General did not back down an inch, treating the greatest of all time like a mildly annoying hurdle.
When Gunther finally lost his patience and chopped Cena, the sound echoed all the way to the upper deck. A massive red welt formed on Cena's chest almost instantly. Cena selling the strike like absolute death, only to slowly look up and hit that vintage, defiant smirk, was everything I love about professional wrestling. In exactly five minutes, they established Gunther as a remorseless threat while giving Cena his flowers.
Hated: The Bloodline interference is a tired, exhausting trope
I understand the core booking philosophy at play here. You do not want to give away a massive WrestleMania-caliber match on free television. But booking a huge main event only to end it in a dusty, predictable disqualification finish at exactly 10:55 PM is flat-out insulting to the audience.
Cody Rhodes and Solo Sikoa were having a genuinely great, deeply physical match before the nonsense started. Cody hit a beautiful suicide dive to the outside, and Solo countered a disaster kick with a brutal Samoan Spike. The near falls were actually working, and the crowd was buying into the late-match drama.
Then, right on cue, the rest of the Bloodline swarms the ring right as Cody hooks the arms for the Cross Rhodes. The referee calls for the bell, the beatdown commences, and a babyface sprints down with a steel chair to make the save. We have seen this exact NWO-style run-in template roughly four hundred times over the last three years. It completely deflated the live crowd and made the previous twenty minutes of wrestling feel entirely pointless.
Loved: The unhinged, magnificent hater energy of Drew McIntyre
Nobody on the current WWE roster is maximizing their television minutes quite like Drew McIntyre. His transition into an unapologetic, deeply petty hater has been the most consistently entertaining part of Monday nights for months. Last night, he took his grievances to an entirely new level of disrespect.
His promo dissecting the hypocrisy of the locker room was delivered with such venom that you almost forget he is supposed to be the villain. He brings a level of realism to his complaints that makes standard wrestling promos feel overly scripted by comparison. When he pulled out a printed spreadsheet to mock an opponent's win-loss record, I legitimately laughed out loud at my screen.
Combine that character work with the upgraded production values we have seen since the Netflix move, and McIntyre feels like an absolute megastar. The continuous tracking shot following him from the parking garage, through the gorilla position, and straight out to the ramp was a beautiful piece of camera work. It makes the entire product feel incredibly modern, urgent, and raw.
Hated: The agonizing pacing of the middle hour
Despite the high points, WWE still has a glaring, undeniable pacing problem that refuses to go away. The second hour of last night’s show dragged so horribly that I legitimately considered switching over to watch baseball highlights. We were subjected to back-to-back video packages recapping things that happened literally forty-five minutes earlier in the exact same broadcast.
We do not need a slick, five-minute video essay about a midcard feud when both guys are standing backstage in the building. Give that television time to the in-ring talent who are desperate for reps. Give it to the cruiserweights, or give it to the women's roster who are begging for a chance to tell a story in the ring. Stop treating the viewing audience like we have the attention span of a goldfish.
WrestleMania 41 is right around the corner, and the creative team really needs to trim the fat before we get to Allegiant Stadium. You simply cannot expect fans to stay red-hot for three solid hours when you deliberately cool them down with repetitive filler. Fix the agonizing pacing, trust your wrestlers to tell the story between the ropes, and let the organic momentum carry us into Vegas.
At the end of the day, the pieces are clearly on the board for WrestleMania 41 to be an all-time great premium live event. The main event scene is as healthy as it has been in a decade, and the sheer star power at the top of the card is undeniable. But episodes of Raw like this are a stark reminder that WWE still struggles to fill three hours of television without leaning on exhausting tropes.
Next week is the true go-home show before the grandest stage of them all. There is no more room for midcard filler, no more time for repetitive video packages, and absolutely no more excuses for lazy booking. It is time to step on the gas and deliver the chaotic, must-see television that WrestleMania season demands. See you all next Monday.
