WWE RAW Review for 3/28/11 (The Rock Confronts John Cena and The Miz)

What's up, ladies and gentlemen? My name is Eric Kanes and I welcome you to this week's edition of the WWE RAW Review.

Before we move on, if you've been enjoying my reviews or if this is your first time and you enjoy this review, make sure to add me on Facebook. It is a new account that I have opened up just for wrestling-related stuff and I will use it to plug future columns and give my thoughts on various wrestling news throughout the week.

And without any further ado, from Chicago, Illinois, this is the RAW Review.

-CM Punk starts off the show and boy, is the crowd hot. I could already tell that this is going to be an awesome crowd. Punk shows a replay from last week where he hits Orton with a wrench and his "wife" is screaming. He says that Orton took away the New Nexus from him and now he took away the respect of Orton's wife from him. That'll be an impressive feat when he takes away the respect of the other 200 wives that Orton has.

-Punk must have kicked Orton a bit too hard in the head because Orton is actually selling! Wow, that is not something I expected to see. He's doing a pretty good job too.

-"The Man of 1,000 Wives" Randy Orton tried to kick Punk but fell over. Punk then saw that on the Tron, realized that Orton was vulnerable, and took him out. They really made Punk look strong here but now they have a problem on their hands. Orton has to sell the injury at Mania and that's not exactly an area that he excels at. That could end up hurting the quality of their match. Nonetheless, this was an awesome way to kick off the show.

-This is the third time in three weeks that Del Rio has lost, for anybody keeping track. He's winning at Mania. There's no question about it. My full WrestleMania preview should be up sometime this week.

-Sin Cara is set to debut on RAW next week. Hmmm...I'm not sure if that's the best time. All the focus will be on The Rock and John Cena. I don't see where he fits in either. Rumor has it that he'll be feuding with CM Punk. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

-Ha, Kane doing the trombone celebration was epic.

-I've seen several people complaining that Kane doing the trombone makes him seem like less of a monster. That may be true but in my opinion, Kane's world title reign last year was one of the lowest points in SmackDown history if not the lowest point. And yes, that is considering The Great Khali's reign in 2007. With that said, having Kane in a tag team with Big Show is the most useful role that he could be in. Kane is not a main event draw and he just doesn't fit into the main event scene but he can do wonders for the tag team division. This is the role that he needs to stay in.

-Keri Hilson will be singing the national anthem at WrestleMania. Awww man. I wanted it to be Heath Slater since he's a rock band. How come we never see him rocking out?

-I marked the f*ck out for Shawn Michaels. I was not expecting him to come out.

-This segment dragged on a bit lasting a grand total of 17 minutes but it was exactly what was needed going into WrestleMania. This ended with Undertaker emphasizing the fact that he ended Michaels' career because Michaels wouldn't give up and kept trying to end the streak. Michaels went for the sweet chin music but Taker caught his leg. Triple H asked Michaels to tell Taker why he will beat him at WrestleMania but Michaels just left saying "I'm sorry." Perfect. This is all I've been asking for for the past several weeks. We get that Triple H and Undertaker respect and love to stare at each other and that's lovely but that crap isn't going to sell pay-per-views. Promos like this will. With Michaels remembering what it's like to face Taker and suddenly doubting Triple H, this makes you want to tune in to see if Triple H can do it. Will Michaels be at ringside for the match? Probably. Will he get involved? No. If he gets involved then he has to be involved in a storyline which means coming out of retirement. You can count that out. Either way, this was a solid promo and this restored my interest in WrestleMania by that much.

-Jerry Lawler took Jack Swagger out with a chair about a minute into their match. Afterwards, he tried to attack Cole but Cole went back into the Cole Mine and spilled soda in his face. This was a step down from the awesome promos that Cole has been cutting each week, but this is another match that I'm really looking forward to. The build-up for this has been much better than Edge/Del Rio, which is one of the world title matches. Major props to Cole for that.

-Wow, a Daniel Bryan/John Morrison match that got over five minutes? This is an insane RAW. The only little problem here was that they mistimed the K-Mart plug so Josh Matthews did it right as Daniel Bryan tagged in. They could've saved that for after the match. Doing it during a hot tag really hurts the quality of the match.

-The Road Warriors are getting honored for their WWE career in the same way as Drew Carey as they're being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I've been to more WWE events than Drew Carey. I'm still waiting for my induction.

-Apparently, Snooki showed up drunk to the taping of the segment that aired last night. It showed. I mean, it was blatantly obvious that she was drunk. However, I'll be sincere here. It was no worse than the promos that the other divas cut when they're fully sober.

-So apparently, Michelle and Layla flew all the way to New Jersey just to beat up Snooki & Trish and get some vendetta. They're like the freakin' Mafia!

-Alright, I won't go into too much detail on the Rock/Cena/Miz promo because my words won't do it justice. It was incredible. The crowd was into every word and all three men brought their A-game. The one person who looked out of place was Alex Riley with his cheesy grin. I still don't know why they brought him back in The Miz's corner. All he does is get his ass kicked.

-Haha "John Cena comes out here every week looking like a homeless Power Ranger" was the line of the night.

-John Cena actually...cut an amazing promo. Although he didn't address The Rock's main point (and I'll get to that in a bit), and despite the fact that he got "Cena Sucks" chants, he really came off sounding like the protagonist.

-The Miz got completely squashed and John Cena came out looking strong. Remember the formula - look weak on TV = win on PPV. I've got The Miz winning with possible interference by The Rock. A month ago, I would've laughed at you if you told me that The Rock would be staying past WrestleMania. However, more and more signs are pointing to a Cena/Rock feud post-Mania. Why would they do all of this otherwise?

Overall, this week's RAW gets a 9/10 from me. Very solid show with terrific promos by Undertaker/Michaels/Triple H and Rock/Cena/Miz. The matches also got some time which is a rare thing to see. Last week, I could care less about Mania other than the Cole/Lawler match and The Rock's presence. This week, I can't wait. In that sence, the show was a success.

There's one more interesting thing that I want to bring up and I might write a longer column about this in the next several days. Both The Rock and John Cena bring up some legit points. That is why I ask you, the Bleacher Report readers, if this was a real-life feud whose side would you be on and why? Feel free to discuss this here. Personally, I'd have to go with The Rock. In his first promo back, he made it clear that he was unhappy with the fact that somebody less talented like Cena is the person who took his spot as the top guy and he was unhappy with the fact that Cena talked trash about his family. Cena's rebuttal? Cena is there every week while The Rock isn't. That's it. Obviously, The Rock isn't there every week. Wrestling is not his profession. The Rock could just as well call Cena out for not being on set for a movie every week.

With that said, if they do have a feud post-Mania, who should be the face and who should be the heel? I'll once again go with Cena as the heel and Rock as the face. First and foremost, there is no way that the crowd will turn on The Rock and secondly, this would allow for two other fresh and potentially brilliant programs. Heel Cena vs. Face Orton and Heel Cena vs. Undertaker at WrestleMania 28. Either way, this is an interesting topic to discuss.

One more thing before I go today. I have been working on a wrestling March Madness tournament over the past month called "Greatest WrestleMania Match of All Time." The Final Four bracket is up with the four bracket winners facing off and we are already nearing 100 votes. The Finals will be up tomorrow (3/30) so make sure to cast your votes right here until it's too late.

I will be right back here tomorrow with the final bracket of the "Greatest WrestleMania Match" torunament, but until then, I'm out!