LIVE Raw thoughts - March 31, 2014

11:06 - Really fun ending to Raw (and the right one, in my view).  And I have to say, I sorta like the differing ways that Orton and Batista are heeling it up and responding to Triple H.  Batista is the angry, entitled asshole.  Orton is the ass kissing, manipulative coward.  It's an effective way to make all four of these guys interesting in their various interactions.

10:55 - Certainly they have to have Bryan appear in this match, right?  I mean, WrestleMania is pretty much built around him and he gets the biggest reaction of the entire roster....they wouldn't be so foolish as to leave him off of the final Raw before WrestleMania, would they?

10:42 - I'm not even sure if Miz is supposed to be good or bad.

10:40 - Man, Piper has had that jacket since forever!

10:25 - Again, not surprised to see Roman Reigns win....but I am surprised that there was SUCH a significant difference between him and the other two Shield members.  I thought we'd more likely see something like 60% Reigns, 30% Rollins, 10% Ambrose.

10:18 - Upon checking out WWE Shop, I came across some pretty cool WWE Championship side plates for WrestleMania.  Another cool way to customize the WWE Championship:

http://shop.wwe.com/WrestleMania-30-WWE-Championship-Replica-Side-Plates/W06771,default,pd.html?dwvar_W06771_color=No%20Color&start=1&cgid=New

10:14 - I'm of course annoyed that AJ lost, but at the VERY least, it was due to some severe outside interference.  But still.

10:10 - I'll be rather disappointed if AJ loses here.

10:02 - I have to admit, the visual of Cena appearing behind them wearing the sheep mask was pretty cool.

9:47 - By the way, I fully expect Roman Reigns to win this poll and assume that Seth Rollins will come in second.  I am, however, extremely interested in seeing the exact numbers.  I think this could be telling.

9:39 - I'm looking at this match right now and wondering if Goldust and Cody Rhodes deserves better than the Andre battle royal.  But the fact of the matter is, unlike last year, there really aren't any guys in specific matches that don't deserve it.  Last year unproven guys like Big E and Fandango got WrestleMania matches while guys like Kofi Kingston, Zack Ryder, and ultimately the Miz did not (and the Bellas were scheduled to have a match while AJ and Kaitlyn were not).  This year, that really isn't the case.

9:05 - Pretty brilliant video, utilizing the names of people that fans have complained about.  Really missed out on using CM Punk, though.

8:59 - I've never watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother in my life, but the Twitter talk got me curious so I decided to see how it ended.  Back on Raw.  Triple H is talking.

8:49 - Good thing that the go-home Raw is focusing on Total Divas, instead of the Divas Championship.

8:29 - It's amazing how much momentum Big E has lost since winning the Intercontinental Championship.  Has the guy had ONE storyline since winning the title?  That's the problem with so many of these midcard wrestlers....they get no storylines.  They'll occasionally "feud" with somebody, but there's really no story behind it.  More times than not, it's that dreadful "challenger beats champion in a non-title match/tag team match" sequence that I detest.  But without a story, there's no real momentum.  Especially when you consider that half of these guys lose just as often as they win.

8:19 - Sounds like the WWE Championship match was booted off of the WrestleMania card and onto the pre-show.

8:15 - Eh, a bit of a lackluster opening.  And honestly, Undertaker didn't even do a great job of selling that F5.  He was rolling around with his eyes open.  Why not sell it like it killed him?  JBL talked about how if Lesnar hits that during the match, it's over.  But that's not the impression I got.  Yeah, Undertaker was beat up....but he still had some fight.  Give people the perception that an F5 ends this match, period.  They didn't get that message across.

8:04 - It's a bit odd, especially considering who he's up against, but is this the least interesting Undertaker WrestleMania match in, like, a decade?