The Undertaker pays respect to the late William Moody. Photo credit: WWE.com
The show started with a nice tribute to William 'Paul Bearer' Moody, with The Undertaker coming out afterwards and doing his trademark routine in the ring with Moody's urn. CM Punk then interrupted things, which understandably generated some real heat for him from the fans. Punk claimed that while to Bearer will always have known the perfect 20-0 WrestleMania streak, everyone else will know the 20-1 record after he defeats him on the grand stage. It was an interesting start to the show.
During the break a furious Kane then attempted to chokeslam Punk off of the stage, but Punk managed to escape and legged it.
Big Show versus Seth Rollins soon ended in a disqualification when Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns helped out their Shield teammate by beating down Show, who managed to make a brief comeback but was then taken down by a spear by Reigns and a triple powerbomb.
An upset CM Punk stormed into Vickie Guerrero's office and demanded something be done about Kane's actions, so she decided to put him in a No Disqualification match against the 'Big Red Monster'. Punk was not amused.
Dolph Ziggler pinned Daniel Bryan in a solid encounter. As expected, these two wrestlers who clearly take pride in their work both gave great efforts here, providing an exciting match with nicely executed back and fourth action. For the finish Bryan had the No Lock on Ziggler, but a distraction from AJ Lee and Big E Langston pulling Ziggler towards the ropes soon put an end to that. Ziggler then countered another No Lock and quickly applied a Zig Zag for the one-two-three.
In his trademark segment, Fandango once again refuse to compete due to his name being pronounced to a poor standard. He also called Brodus Clay and Tensai an "abomination" with their poor dancing skills.
Team Rhodes Scholars performed their own amusing rendition of the New Age Outlaws intro promo, which was actually well executed by both men. Road Dogg and Billy Gunn then joined them and did the original version before their following match up. But as the tag bout begun Brock Lesnar, accompanied by Paul Heyman, walked out and took out Triple H's fellow DX members with an F5 a piece.
Paul Heyman went on to explain that Lesnar could do whatever he pleased, evidenced by him breaking Shawn Michael's arm and breaking Vince McMahon's hip. He also added that Lesnar accepted Triple H's challenge for a match at WrestleMania, but only if they got to name the stipulations after the COO had signed the contract.
Mark Henry beat Kofi Kingston in a fair outing. Rather than the usual squash matches involving Henry, we at least got a bit of offense from Kofi here to make it a bit more engaging.
Ryback bested Heath Slater in a brief squash match. Afterwards fellow 3MB member Drew McIntyre tried his luck to take out Ryback, but failed miserably. Henry watched on from the stage, then marched to the ring and had a contest with Ryaback on who could dish out more damage to the fallen McIntyre.
Alberto Del Rio defeated Antonio Cesaro in a highly enjoyable contest. Two of WWE's most consistent performers once again delivered here, each giving worthy efforts and providing stellar wrestling.
We were then shown a nicely produced Rock versus Cena promo for 'Mania, and as someone that has little interest in their rematch even I have to admit that it peaked my interest.
Sheamus and Randy Orton beat Team Rhodes Scholars (Damien Sandow & Cody Rhodes) in a decent enough tag bout. While there was nothing particularly exceptional I can't fault the displays of any of the four men, they put on a largely fun match to watch. Afterwards The Shield appeared and attacked Sheamus and Orton.
Wade Barrett soon interrupted Chris Jericho's Highlight Reel with special guest The Miz, and stated that his latest starring role in 'The Marine 3' was nothing compared to his in 'Dead Man Down'. After some more bickering between him and Miz (it really wasn't great) Y2J interjected and warned Barrett that he might have to take the Intercontinental Title from him.
Brad Maddox then joined them and booked Jericho versus Miz to determine the number one contender to the IC strap. The segment was quite painful to watch, even Jericho wasn't on great form. I also couldn't quite tell if Maddox was purposely being awkward here or not, I'm hoping he was because I'm a fan, he's got plenty of charisma and is always one of my highlights of a show when providing guest commentary.
Chris Jericho versus The Miz ended in a DQ after Barrett started brawling with both men. The contest itself had been quite pedestrian, and certainly not up to the quality of Jericho's more recent outings since returning. After attacking them, Y2J and Miz then turned things around and took out Barrett.
Jack Swagger bested Sin Cara in a passable match up. While the action was decent enough, it wasn't the most remarkable or memorable affair. Afterwards Del Rio ran down to stop Swagger as he refused to let go of the Patriot Lock on Sin Cara and chased him off.
Kane pinned CM Punk in the No Disqualification main event. It was an enjoyable enough match, both men looked good. It just failed to really get me excited at any point, but I can't fault the displays given. I did however have a big gripe with Kane winning, Punk has lost recently to The Rock and Cena so WWE should be doing everything they can to make him a more believable contender to 'Taker's streak. Kane gained the victory after applying a chokeslam when Undertaker's bong hit and distracted Punk.
Afterwards as Kane and 'Taker both posed with respect to Paul Bearer, CM Punk cracked Kane multiple times with Bearer's urn and made a quick getaway when 'The Deadman' made his way to the ring, mocking The Undertaker's pose on the stage. I'm hoping we get a bit more of the down to earth, 'Bad Ass' 'Taker in the lead up to their match to add a bit more depth to the feud.
Overall it was a fair, if unremarkable Raw. The highlights for me were the Ziggler versus Bryan and Cesaro versus Del Rio bouts, which were both very solid, the Heyman and Lesnar segment and the nice William Moody tribute package. The main event was also a decent enough watch, and The Rock versus Cena VT was well executed. Unfortunately the rest of the show failed to engage me much at all. 
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