WWE Raw preview (Mar. 9, 2020): Furious anger

With Elimination Chamber in the rearview, WWE’s march to WrestleMania 36 starts in earnest on Mar. 9 in Washington, D.C.

The Headliner(s)

WWE has a tendency to build their big programs with a lot of talking segments. It’s not a bad formula. Just last Friday, we just saw Bray Wyatt convince fans his upcoming WrestleMania 36 match with John Cena is must-see with one Firefly Fun House.

And last Monday, Beth Phoenix and Randy Orton had an electric in-ring promo exchange which brilliantly furthered Orton’s issues with Beth’s husband Edge. But when Edge returns tonight for the first time since The Viper took out him in January, I don’t want to see the Rated-R Superstar with a mic in his hand.

Because when Randy was done talking about how he Con-Chair-To-ed his former tag partner out of love, he RKO-ed Phoenix. The Hall of Famer had to be helped out of the arena, and missed her regular gig announcing NXT two nights later to sell the assault.

Edge can take his time explaining why he’s been gone for weeks, and what it felt like to watch Orton reclaim his Legend Killer name while he was gone, next week. For now, he needs to be out for blood.

That can take the form of tearing his way through the backstage area in search of Randy, or charging into the ring to attack him when Orton shows up to do something else. It could even involve Edge calling him out. But it shouldn’t involve the Rated R Superstar monologuing.

The title scene

WWE champion Brock Lesnar isn’t advertised for Capital One Arena. That’s fine, as he should sit home and think about how Drew McIntyre Claymore-d his face off last week.

That was how they built up the red brand’s top men’s challenger for WrestleMania 36. For Raw Women’s champ Becky Lynch’s opponent, they let Shayna Baszler run through all five women she shared the Elimination Chamber with last night. The Man watched from a monitor but didn’t confront the new #1 contender in Philly. Probably saving that for tonight.

Thanks to another assist from Kevin Owens, Street Profits retained their Raw Tag titles at Sunday’s PPV. That should allow them to move on from Seth Rollins & Murphy (and KO & Rollins to focus solely on one another). Will AOP be the next mountain they have to climb? Or what about their friendly rivals Viking Raiders?

Thanks to a handful of tights, Andrade kept his United States championship with another win over Humberto Carrillo at Elimination Chamber. It’s hard to imagine Carrillo getting another one-on-one shot at the belt, but a multi-man ‘Mania match featuring Rey Mysterio and Angel Garza feels like a real possibility.

Dominant 24/7 champion Riddick Moss started a whole internet conversation about Ricochet last week. What does he do for an encore? Fingers crossed it’s lose the belt to R-Truth.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

- With an Undertaker-assisted win last night, Aleister Black looks ready to move on from his feud with The O.C. (maybe into a multi-man U.S. title feud?). But we need to see how WWE sells us on an AJ Styles/Taker match at WrestleMania after The Dead Man’s made easy work on The Phenomenal One on multiple occasions now.

- There’s a big old spider in Erick Rowan’s cage.

- The Riott Squad feud was sacrificed at the alter of Baszler last night, but here’s hoping we still get a midcard feud between Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan.

It’s the Elimination Chamber fallout show!

What will you be looking for on Raw tonight?