Raw Review 2/23/15

With Fast Lane in the rear view mirror, we're officially on the Road to WrestleMania. Fresh off his return at Fast Lane last night, Randy Orton opened things up. He called out Seth Rollins right off the bat, but was greeted by the other members of the Authority. Stephanie McMahon is the main one doing the talking as she tries to convince Randy to come back to the Authority. Big Show does some convincing too. Stephanie brings up the stuff Orton even did to her years ago (DDT and kiss), as a reason to not hold grudges. They want to hold a business conference with him, and he agrees. This was a strange move. The crowd was hot for Orton because they want him to get his hands on the Authority so why go this route? I get that he has heel tendencies but that is actually what makes Orton a solid face. He can work the anti-hero angle very well.

Bad News Barrett is here for a non-title match with Dolph Ziggler. Not only does BNB not have his Intercontinental Title, but he has no character anymore. He no longer gives out "bad news" or anything. R-Truth is out on commentary because he beat Barrett on Smackdown last week. Oh my god. Are we seriously gonna have Truth involved in WrestleMania somehow? Fuck. The match was very solid and Ziggler won. Barrett continues to be booked completely horribly since winning the Intercontinental Title. Dean Ambrose came out to have a stare down with Barrett before he bumped Dolph and head off. I guess we'll get some sort of multi-man match for the IC Title. I prefer Ambrose/Barrett/Ziggler and leave Truth out of it. We waste time highlighting Sting and Triple H from last night. The Authority have their big meeting backstage, and all it does is lead to Seth Rollins and Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan for our main event. Moving on, Sheamus is returning. Soon, we still don't know when. Unless the plan is for him to be in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, he's running out of time to start an actual angle leading into WrestleMania.

The randomly reunited Prime Time Players get the jobber entrance. They square off against the undefeated Ascension. And guess what? They won. Now, I think that the PTP are the better tag team, but if they were serious about building the Ascension, this was not the time for them to lose.The match wasn't very good either. We are now joined by Roman Reigns. He doesn't speak for long because Daniel Bryan cuts him off. Bryan steals the show with his promo. It seemed like he spoke from the heart about how he didn't believe in Roman because he felt he was just the next big guy with the "look." He says that he has more heart than every chosen one in the WWE before he gives him respect and puts him over. Two straight nights, Bryan has done everything in his power to put the man over. Paul Heyman comes out and now it gets sickening. It's one thing for Heyman to put over Roman, but it's another to flat out lie. He had the balls to say that Roman would be the smart against Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Steve Austin, John Cena, Triple H and the Rock in their primes. Seriously Paul? This Roman Reigns cock sucking segment got way out of hand. Reigns came off looking better than normal during a promo but it was a bit nauseating.

After winning the WWE Tag Team Titles at Fast Lane 24 hours earlier, Tyson Kidd and Cesaro had to defend them as the Usos used their rematch clause. Just like last night, this was a fun match. They got a bit more time than they did last night, but this one didn't have a clean finish. Kidd tried to cheat so Naomi knocked his feet off the apron. This led to Natalya shoving her and then getting very pissed as she knocked an Uso off the top rope, resulting in the disqualification. I'm loving how Nattie is slowing moving towards going full on heel with her champions. She also seemed to hurt her ankle, but I'm not sure if it was legit. Backstage, Damien Mizdow thanks Miz because he's getting commercial offers. Miz will be in the Andre the Giant battle royal. Bray Wyatt cuts a promo with a casket to continue the build for his match with the Undertaker. It was fine but this needs to have some sort of Undertaker appearance. Stardust faces Jack Swagger next, and after a short time, Goldust distracted his brother and Swagger won. This was a shit finish for a match that didn't help either guy.

Top of the third hour and here comes John Cena, fresh off his loss to Rusev. He calls Rusev's finisher the Acolyte in the midst of "Generic John Cena Promo #6". This is the one where he admits defeat, hypes the crowd, talks seriously and yells some. He ruins everything when he says that he didn't mind losing but has a problem with losing. Oh gee, well I guess not winning that United States Title is totally fine. Why should anyone root for someone to win that belt again? Lana and Rusev appear to run him down. Cena wants to win the US Title at WrestleMania, but Rusev is all like "the fuck did you do to deserve another shot?". He's not wrong. I guess Cena has to prove himself over the next few weeks. Paige come sout before we go to a long video about Sting's career. This video was way longer than the actual Divas match that followed. Paige and Emma lost to the Bella Twins in less than a minute. Earlier, R-Truth tried to get #GiveTruthAChance trending. Instead, the number two trend worldwide was #GiveDivasAChance. It's true. Why is it that on a three hour show, you can't find ten minutes to give these girls? I would surely take that over wasting that time recapping the shit that we've seen already earlier in the nigh. It's absolutely criminal that people with the talent that Paige, Emma and even the Bella Twins have, get pigeonholed into three minutes at the most. They are given time on Main Event, NXT and Superstars and those are one hour programs. This pisses me off to not end since Paige is one of the main reasons that I watch Raw on a weekly basis. Next, we get the video for the Bushwackers going into the Hall of Fame. Hooray.

Curtis Axel shows up, with a #AxelMania shirt. He says that he's been in the Royal Rumble match for 29 days now. He enters himself into the Andre the Giant battle royal and wrestles another guy who will be in it, Ryback. RYBAXEL EXPLODES! BUT THEY'RE FRIENDS! THIS ISN'T COOL! Ryback wins quickly, but this was at least somewhat fun. The main event comes up and is probably the match of the night. I was pretty surprised to see Roman Reigns make the hot tag to Daniel Bryan instead of the other way around. Bryan comes in with the big knee and pins Rollins for the victory. Randy Orton was not happy and hit Jamie Noble with an RKO. He seemed to be gearing up to do the same to Seth, but instead just exited and left the rest of the Authority confused. This was a really lame way to end the show. Orton should be salivating to get his hands on Seth, not doing this tease nonsense.

Talk about a soft way to begin our trek to WrestleMania. There's only 34 days left and we know a few things but nothing tonight really made me want to watch the big show. From a match perspective, this wasn't an awful show. The main event, opener and Tag Team Title matches were all good stuff but as a WrestleMania build show, this sucked. 3/10.