Wrestlemania 33 Go Home Raw – March 27, 2017

The Wrestlemania 33 Go Home Raw comes to us from Philadelphia, most likely so they could go ahead and start plugging for Royal Rumble next year.  The show itself, not terribly exciting, but let’s dig in, because even when they put on a semi-sh***y show, there’s still some good in there.  For instance…

Let’s Do Some Teddy Long Booking to Open

That Fatal Four Way match at Wrestlemania for the Raw Women’s Championship…..yep, it’s an elimination match playa.  But what’s more, let’s kick off the show by putting presumably the two bad guys against the two besties, for the time being.  Pretty good match here, as is usually the case when the women’s division is given time to work the mat instead of the mic.  Bayley hits the Bayley-to-Belly on Charlotte for the Win.

The Stuff in the Middle

• As expected, Seth Rollins signed the contract for the unsanctioned match against Triple H, so it’s going down at Mania.  Seth Rollins promo work is heavily underrated, I think.  This is not only his Road to Wrestlemania, after missing last year, but his Redemption Road.
• Undertaker played more mind games with Roman Reigns, even having a tombstone printed with Roman’s name and April 2, 2017 on it.  Not a bad segment, and they’re actually managing to make me excited for this match, even knowing they’re going to let Roman go over Taker.
• Sami Zayn defeated Kevin Owens when Y2J thwarted Samoa Joe’s interference.  If there were one more Raw before Mania, you could bank on another tag match, but instead, let’s get beyond Sami-KO forever at this point.  Move one of them to Smackdown.  As one of the caveats of this match, if Sami lost he was fired, if he won he was in the Andre.  So he’s in the Andre.  Strowman will win anyway.  Or Kane will finally come back.
• All three Tag Teams in the Triple Threat brawled backstage.  Gallows and Anderson stood tall.
• Austin Aries defeated Noam Dar.
• Neville defeated Jack Gallagher.
• Big Show held his own mini-Andre with the forgotten members of the Raw Roster.  Strowman got to look like a beast.

Speaking of Beasts….

Paul Heyman talked shit, Goldberg hit a spear, Lesnar backed down.  I’m actually starting to feel like Goldberg may actually get to stay champion at Wrestlemania.  Which is good, as aside from that I have no feelings whatsoever about this match and may use it as an opportunity to beat some traffic to the Uber line.

Show was ok.  Not great.  Watch it on Hulu, let WWE even cut the stuff they don’t care enough for you to see in a condensed (what should be televised) version of the show.