WWE Raw preview (Mar. 14, 2022): It’s now or never for Cody Rhodes

Raw airs tonight (Mar. 14) with a live show from the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. This is the fourth Raw episode during the six week build towards WrestleMania 38 on the weekend of Apr. 2 & 3.

It’s now or never for Cody Rhodes

Ever since Cody Rhodes left AEW and became a free agent, many fans and analysts have been expecting him to return to WWE for a big match at WrestleMania 38. But it hasn’t happened yet, and we don’t know why. The rumor mill is all over the place on this one. It sounds like WWE had creative plans on the books for Cody at one point, but now there’s a lot of uncertainty in where this story is headed.

Seth Rollins is right there waiting for a match with Rhodes at WrestleMania. Rollins currently has nothing planned for the biggest pro wrestling event of the year. If WWE signs Cody, then a match between Rhodes and Rollins is the obvious direction for WrestleMania.

Tonight’s episode of Raw essentially takes place in Tony Khan and AEW’s backyard. If Cody is returning to WWE in time for a match at WrestleMania 38, it’s now or never. This is the ideal place for Cody to show up, cut a worked shoot style promo taking a few jabs at his old company, and set up his WrestleMania match.

But if Cody doesn’t sign with WWE and is off the WrestleMania card, WWE will have to quickly change gears and figure out what to do with Seth. They can’t wait around any longer for negotiations with Cody to resolve.

In that case, is WWE desperate enough to bring Shane McMahon back for a match with Rollins? Could Rollins head over to Friday nights and pursue Ricochet’s Intercontinental title? What about Rollins versus Bron Breakker?

Who knows! We’ll have to tune in to Raw tonight to see how the Cody and Seth dramas play out.

The title scene

Randy Orton and Matt Riddle won the Raw tag team titles from Alpha Academy in a thrilling triple threat match last week. The RK-Bro partnership appears to be stronger than ever, with Orton even using the F-word to acknowledge that Riddle is his friend. The new champs have a celebration planned tonight. Will their WrestleMania opponents interrupt the proceedings? Could it be the Street Profits, who believe they deserve a tag title shot after beating RK-Bro a couple weeks ago?

Becky Lynch still plans to defend the Raw women’s championship against Bianca Belair at WrestleMania 38 despite fracturing her voice box. After missing last week’s episode of Raw, Lynch technically made her return to the ring in a 4 vs. 3 handicap match at a house show over the weekend.

Finn Balor is the new United States champion and is being targeted by the former champ, Damian Priest. Priest is a sore loser who could very well bring out Balor’s demon form at WrestleMania if he keeps up the unprovoked attacks on Finn.

Queen Zelina Vega and Carmella are currently scheduled to defend the Women’s tag team titles at WrestleMania 38 in a triple threat match against Sasha Banks & Naomi and Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan. I figured Ripley might have soured on the whole makeshift tag team concept after her team with Nikki A.S.H. collapsed, but she’s smart enough to know this is the only way she can make the WrestleMania card this year. Could SmackDown stars Banks and Naomi make an appearance on tonight’s show? Austin Theory shows up on SmackDown whenever he wants, so WWE isn’t even pretending like those roster rules matter one bit.

The 24/7 title scene has turned into a strange romance angle between Dana Brooke & Reggie and Akira Tozawa & Tamina. It mostly makes for bad television, but Raw is three hours long and WWE fired 80+ wrestlers last year, so this is what we’re left with.

WWE Champion Brock Lesnar is once again not advertised for Raw. If you want to see the WWE title these days, you’ll have to tune into WWE’s more important television show that airs on Friday nights.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

- Kevin Owens had nothing to do at WrestleMania so he challenged Steve Austin to appear on the KO Show. Stone Cold accepted the offer and said he has one last can of whoop ass to open. KO will respond to Austin’s response tonight. Don’t expect Austin to be in the building to confront Owens in person, because that would defeat the whole purpose of these two guys having a confrontation at WrestleMania.

- Edge went insane and took out AJ Styles with two con-chair-tos. Now he’s bad, blue, and standing on the mountain of omnipotence. I’m a little worried about this guy. Maybe AJ needs to invade Edge’s home to help him snap out of it and come back to reality.

- Logan Paul and The Miz didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye last week after Miz mocked Cleveland’s suitability to host a future WrestleMania event. This doesn’t bode well for their ability to work together in their upcoming tag team match against Rey and Dominik Mysterio at WrestleMania.

- There is a rumor that the WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal will return this year. Doudrop, Alexa Bliss, and Nikki A.S.H. are some of the Raw women who currently have nothing lined up at WrestleMania, so they’ll need to hope those rumors are true.

- After destroying Apollo Crews last week, Omos has his sights set on Commander Azeez. Is WWE actually thinking of booking this potentially terrible singles match on WrestleMania, or is it more of a preview for what we might see in an Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal?

- Dolph Ziggler actually won the NXT title last week. Does that mean we get to see more Bron Breakker and his improved smiling skills on Raw tonight?

- WWE forgot to let us know last week if Veer Mahaan is still coming to Raw. Let’s hope we receive a meaningful update tonight. After all, there are only a few weeks to go before the most stupendous two night WrestleMania in history.

What will you be looking for on Raw tonight?