*OFFICIAL* Raw Discussion Thread: 12th March 2018

[Awesome]

One week after Roman Reigns called Universal Champion Brock Lesnar an “entitled piece of crap who hides behind his contract,” he told Paul Heyman that if The Beast Incarnate is actually coming to Raw in Detroit as scheduled, he’d better be ready for a fight.

As a prizefighter, Lesnar seldom throws down unless he’s being paid to do so. Will The Conqueror make an exception to repay The Big Dog for his recent insults?

One of the most celebrated friendships in sports-entertainment is seemingly on the rocks. After Sasha Banks saved Bayley from a two-on-one Absolution beatdown, The Huggable One rejected an embrace from The Boss.

Bayley’s a big “Stone Cold” Steve Austin fan, but it seems like she’s taking The Texas Rattlesnake’s “Don’t Trust Anybody” mantra to an extreme in recent weeks. Is there any chance of reconciliation?

“The Ballad of Elias” is a sad, sad song. After being crushed beneath a piano by Braun Strowman last Monday night on Raw — a fate more befitting Wile E. Coyote than a WWE Superstar — the troubadour left Raw on a stretcher and was rushed to a local medical facility. The Monster Among Men, meanwhile, celebrated his victory in WWE’s first-ever Symphony of Destruction Match, continuing his seemingly unstoppable rampage on The Road to WrestleMania.

As Elias recuperates, the WWE Universe awaits Strowman’s next masterpiece. How will he follow up on his painful piano solo?

Last week on Raw, we learned that Ronda Rousey will team with Raw General Manager Kurt Angle to take on Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon and WWE COO Triple H in a Mixed Tag Team Match at WrestleMania.

A physical altercation soon followed, and The Game found himself struggling to escape from the excruciating Angle Lock while Stephanie succumbed to a powerhouse maneuver from Rousey.

Just a week after signing with Team Red, Rousey is wasting little time making waves. Will Stephanie and Triple H retaliate against their Show of Shows opponents this week?

“The Ultimate Deletion” is upon us, and the battleground has been chosen.

After “Woken” Matt Hardy invited Bray Wyatt to The Hardy Compound for the final battle in the “Great War,” The Eater of Worlds accepted the challenge via social media.

When will “The Ultimate Deletion” transpire?

Don’t miss Raw, tonight!

[Awesome]

It was interesting to see them tease an appearance of Brock Lesnar, then not only fail to deliver on it, but to then break the fourth wall by having Roman Reigns head straight to the Gorilla Position to confront Vince McMahon about it (with Shane McMahon clearly being there too).

Just as interesting and certainly unexpected was John Cena doing "what he wasn't supposed to do" and challenging The Undertaker for a match at WrestleMania, continuing with the line-blurring that Reigns started. Although I truly thought that last year was Undertaker's final match due to his actions afterwards, there is obviously no way that Cena would be able to get away with the challenge and his comments - especially without his microphone being cut off - if it wasn't really being put together to happen.

As a result, I can only assume that this year at WrestleMania, facing John Cena, will be the actual final match of The Undertaker.

Asuka choosing Charlotte Flair to face at WrestleMania was surprising, especially as I thought that she had already made the decision to face Alexa Bliss, but without her specifically doing so on Raw unless I had missed it at some point. Alexa Bliss making her way out to interrupt Asuka's explanation of why she chose Flair had me wondering if Asuka was going to say that contrary to how it looked, she was challenging Bliss, and that furthermore, somehow she had chosen to face both champions at WrestleMania, perhaps in a Triple Threat match.

Such a match however would obviously mean a title unification, which is highly unlikely considering the fact that it hasn't been long enough for both titles existing (something which would also apply to the Universal Championship and WWE Championship too) to make sense to take such a step once again in anywhere near any time soon.

Even if it were to happen, it would surely be at least a few more years, but even then I doubt it as it would make it seem like WWE can't make up their mind if they keep merging and then separating championships to both brands every few years.

What is also clear however, is that what previously seemed to be an uneasy alliance between Alexa Bliss and Mickie James has now turned into a definitive heel turn for Mickie James, as shown with James' words and actions alongside Bliss' own.

I have to admit that when Braun Strowman appeared to enter the tag team battle royal, I half-expected (either before or after the match, but most likely after) that his tag team partner would be revealed as Alexa Bliss (his partner in "Team Little Big" on Mixed Match Challenge) for an even more unexpected Raw Tag Team Championship match at WrestleMania.

I of course realise that is still unlikely as the WWE probably wouldn't be comfortable with such a match given that it would obviously lack the matched gender requirement of a mixed tag team match on the part of Cesaro and Sheamus, plus it also seems clear from the earlier events involving Nia Jax that a WrestleMania match is being set up for Alexa Bliss facing Nia Jax for the Raw Women's Championship.

So of course this begs the question of who Strowman's tag team partner will be, even if I wouldn't really be surprised if he stayed as a one-man team and faced Cesaro and Sheamus for the Raw Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania, I'd still imagine that something else is actually in mind.