Raw airs tonight (Mar. 11) with a live show from Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. This is the third episode of Raw during the six week build towards WrestleMania 40, which takes place on the weekend of April 6 and April 7.
Sami Zayn’s road to WrestleMania is coming to an end too soon
Tonight’s Raw features a Gauntlet match that will determine Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER’s challenger at WrestleMania 40. The six men who are scheduled to compete in the gauntlet are Ricochet, Sami Zayn, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bronson Reed, Chad Gable, and JD McDonagh.
Zayn and Gable stand out as the two favorites, with Bronson as a distant third. Nakamura and Ricochet are longshots, while McDonagh has no chance in hell to win.
Sami was last year’s darling on the road to WrestleMania 39 who emphasized last week that this is his only remaining path to make it to WrestleMania 40, so he has no choice but to win. If WWE is choosing GUNTHER’s opponent based on star power, then it has to be Sami Zayn. It would just be a truly bizarre decision to keep Sami off the WrestleMania card this year.
Meanwhile, Gable has a much more personal story with GUNTHER. Not only did the Ring General defeat Chad last year to clinch his spot as the longest reigning Intercontinental champion of all-time, but he took great joy in making Gable’s child cry in the process. If WWE is choosing GUNTHER’s opponent based on who has the best story, it has to be Chad Gable.
Under Triple H’s creative direction, WWE has shown that it is sometimes willing to go with the right story over the obvious star, so my guess is that Chad Gable will win this gauntlet match. Hell, Gable even has his own catchphrase for the match. How can you be the one guy who has a catchphrase for the match and then lose?
The truth of the matter is that Sami Zayn is incorrect when he said this is his only path to WrestleMania. Zayn has a deep history with Jey Uso and The Bloodline, and more recent bad blood with Drew McIntyre. If Sami loses this match, he may still be able to find a spot at WrestleMania by revisiting one of those stories.
Chad Gable is the one who actually has no other path to make it to WrestleMania. If he loses this gauntlet match, not only will he be a failure as a father, but he’s pretty much sentenced to obscurity in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which doesn’t even make it onto the WrestleMania card anymore.
It looks to me like Chad Gable has to win this match, which means Sami Zayn will only have a few weeks left to find a new path to WrestleMania. Let’s see if that’s how it plays out tonight on Raw.
The rest of the card
Becky Lynch couldn’t put the finishing touch on Nia Jax last week thanks to Liv Morgan showing up to ruin the end of their match, just as Becky had done the week before when Liv fought Nia. As a result, it will be Lynch vs. Morgan tonight. Will Jax or Women’s World Championship Rhea Ripley get involved to send a message to The Man? Will Morgan snap if she loses the fight?
The Kabuki Warriors are scheduled to defend the WWE women’s tag team championship tonight against Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark. Will Bayley begin to fight back against Damage CTRL by making an appearance here to screw them over?
Other stuff to keep an eye on
– Jim Uso and Solo Sikoa crashed Raw last week to make sure Jey Uso failed in his match against Drew McIntyre. Will Jey grab the mic tonight and explain what he plans to do about his brothers continuing to go out of their way to make his life hell?
– Speaking of Drew, he laid out World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins with a Claymore last week, lending some credence to his claim that Seth is more vulnerable thanks to his unnecessary involvement in Cody Rhodes’ war with The Rock and Roman Reigns. How will Seth respond to Drew’s decision to kick his head off?
– There was no doubt about the outcome when Andrade stepped into the ring with jobber Apollo Crews last week. Will WWE raise the level of competition for Andrade tonight, or will he be coasting to more easy wins on the road to WrestleMania?
– R-Truth, The Miz, and DIY were playing WWE 2K24 last week while trying to figure out a plan to get the WWE tag team titles off of The Judgment Day. Which wrestlers will be randomly playing video games in the back tonight while contemplating their direction at WrestleMania?
– What does Cody Rhodes want to talk about after he slapped The Rock in the face on SmackDown?
– Candice LeRae is sick of losing and seems ready to use underhanded tactics to win. At the very least, she treated Maxxine Dupri like garbage like last week, so perhaps they’ll have a match tonight.
– Where the f*** is Sheamus?
What will you be looking for on Raw?
You must be logged in to post a comment Login