Monday Night Raw March 4, 2013: Review (Old School)

Last night's Raw was a Old School Edition of Raw, which I thought was a great show. They had one Old School Raw at 2010 as well, That one wasn't bad either but I think last night's was much better. I attended last night's Raw in Buffalo, NY and I thought It was a fine show. Heard a week ago that It would be a throwaway show wasn't true, I didn't think It was a throwaway show. So I will as always discuss each segment/match and give my opinion about It. So Let's start...

The Show kicked off with The Undertaker making his return and He got a great reaction from the crowd. Every one in the arena were shocked because No body expected Undertaker to kick off Raw, event though many believed He will return.



                                               CM Punk/Sheamus/RandyOrton/BigShow

CM Punk entered the arena along with Paul Heyman. He talked about How he deserves to be in the main event of WrestleMania and blamed fans for why He isn't in the main event which Punk got a good heat for from the crowd. He said He will beat Undertaker at WM and end his streak. Then comes Randy Orton, who says He has already faced CM Punk at WM and has beat him before and also faced Undertaker and came the "closest" to end his streak. Out comes The Big Show saying He should face Undertaker at WrestleMania (Oh god), and talked about How he didn't had the KO punch back then. Celtic Warrior Sheamus comes out and says All four has faced Taker before but Sheamus has never faced him. Vickie Guerrero came out who got a lot of heat from the crowd as always who annoyed a Fatal 4 Way match between the four and winner faces Undertaker at WrestleMania. I thought It's fine but I mean just winning a fatal 4 way match to face Taker seemed pretty dumb and many people in the crowd expected CM Punk to win.



Antonio Cesaro vs Ryback - Nice match between the two. It wasn't a squash match because It was a bit longer than a usual Ryback match. Cesaro has always been losing in non-title bouts, I think thats a problem. He just beat Miz few days ago on Smackdown for the United States Champion.

Mark Henry vs Zack Ryder - Squash match, Always knew Zack Ryder was going to win, Oh wait I mean Mark Henry. If That staredown between Henry and Ryback meant we will get a match between the two at WrestleMania then I'm completely fine with It. Way better than Henry/Khali and Ryback/Shield.




The Miz vs Dolph Ziggler - Solid match between The Show off and The Awesome one. Ric Flair got a great reaction from the crowd. Lot's of "WOOO". The crowd was into the match, and Flair was hyping It ringside. The Miz countered the Figure Four Lock and Dolph Ziggler tapped out. It was about a 10 minutes match, enjoyed It.



                               Point/Counterpoint: The Rock vs John Cena

The arena went crazy as soon as The Rock's music hit, while He made his way to the ring with the new WWE Championship. Wonderful ovation for The Rock, I don't really like the new belt that much but If I see It every week, I'll definitely get used to It. The Rock talked about How It was so cold in Buffalo and How He didn't care about It, crowd were entertained. And then John Cena's music hit and as always He got a mix crowd reaction, since some were not pleased that He Interrupted The Rock. Cena talked about How he felt worthless when he lost to Rock at Mania and How he won't let that happen again and gave Rock a 34 days warning. John Cena mentioned a quote from Mike Tyson, and said Rock's time is up and his time is now.  The Rock ended the promo with saying "At WrestleMania I will beat you.... again... and You will smell What The Rock is cooking" and they had a staredown. I liked the promo a lot, Passion words from Cena and Rock. Build up has started and I'm excited for Rock-Cena II WM.




Jack Swagger vs HackSaw Duggan - Nice reaction for The legends. Swagger layed out all the legends and then walks off. No point of this, they had to make Swagger look strong but that was just pointless, IMO. A fight between Del Rio and Swagger takes place backstage, didn't even last a minute though.




Team Hell No vs Prime Time Players - It was awesome to see The Million Dollar Man ringside for this match, I thought He came to support PTP because they say "Million of Dollars".  Kane and Daniel Bryan won and after the match Ted Dibiase stuffed a $100 bill in Darren Young's mouth and then Daniel Bryan stole It which got every one in the crowd laughing. Great match and Loved How they had Million Dollar Man ringside for It.




Brodus Clay, Lord Tensai, HonkeyTonk man vs 3MB - I wasn't even paying attention to this segment to be honest. Didn't even cared for It, but That whole segment's purpose was for HonkeyTonk man to hit Heath Slater with a guitar. 



                                                          Fandango vs Kofi Kingston 

Finally Fandango makes his debut to Monday Night Raw, ALMOST. Every one in the crowd were annoyed when He said Justin Roberts couldn't get his name right and He won't make his debut until then. He said the samething on Smackdown so now we can confirm that He is a troll.





Triple H promo - Great promo by HHH. Say anything you want but You can't deny that He can cut one hell of a promo. Triple H talked about How He said He won't compete after SummerSlam and He wanted a reason to come back and last week was a good reason to come out. He called out Brock Lesnar and said 5 weeks till WrestleMania and He is challenging him for a match. Almost everyone in the crowd were waiting for Lesnar or Heyman to show up but I always knew Lesnar is not here and expected Heyman to come out but that didn't happen either. We'll probably hear Brock's answer next week and It will probably be a Yes. Yawn. 




Wade Barrett vs Alberto Del Rio - Another short match, with Del Rio winning. Just like Antonio Cesaro, Barrett is also a champion that always loses his non-title bouts even though I've barely seen him defend his title. Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter came out and were watching the match from the ramp, and many in the crowd turned their attention to them Instead of the match but they never came. Ziggler vs Del Rio on Smackdown this week. 




                                            The New Age Outlaws vs Primo and Epico

It was so good to see Billy Gun and Road Dogg. They did their usual promo and that got every one very excited. Some kids didn't knew about them in the crowd but mostly every one were cheering them on. These two are better than most of the tag teams in WWE today. The Buffalo crowd chanted "You still got It"  to Road Dogg. Billy Gun did the Fameasser to Primo to get the win. The match was less than 5 minutes but still every one loved seeing The New Age Outlaws. If you are not down with that, we got two words for you. 

Fatal Four-Way match - Sheamus vs Randy Orton vs Big Show vs CM Punk - CM Punk came out first and cut a promo about How he will face Undertaker at WrestleMania, I think that was during the commercial break so most of you didn't see It. It was a fun match and I knew CM Punk will win after Taker kicked off Raw. They hyped this match so much through out the night that I always knew Taker would show up and when He showed up, once again got a good ovation from the crowd. The show ended with with a staredown between Taker and CM Punk. 



After Raw: Big Show was still laying down and The Shield appeared and they destroyed The Big Show and did their usual move on him as well. They were standing tall as Cena, Ryback, Sheamus made their way to the ring and we had a match between them. Decent match with Shield dominating Cena through out the match and then Ryback dominated Shield. Seth Rollins hit Ryback with a hair thus causing a DQ and then they all did their move on them to send the crowd home happy. WWE will be returning to Buffalo later this year for Over The Limit PPV. 


Overall, This was my first time ever attending Monday Night Raw. Been to a Smackdown tapings, PPV, etc but never Raw so It was a great experience. It was a Old School Raw and It was great to see The Undertaker's return and Cena-Rock promo. I enjoyed the show and thought It was a great build up to WrestleMania. 2 matches that might happen at WrestleMania aside from the confirmed ones might be BigShow/Orton/Sheamus vs Shield and Ryback vs Mark Henry. 


Thank you for reading, Follow me on twitter: OfficialCenafan.


Image credit: WWE.com.