3/1 WWE RAW TALK REPORT: McIntyre talks facing Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania, Jax & Baszler bicker, more

RAW TALK REPORT
MARCH 1, 2021
AIRED ON WWE NETWORK
REVIEW BY NICK MORGAN, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

Hosts: Charly Caruso and R-Truth

This week’s guests: Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax, Elias, and Drew McIntyre

– Kayla Braxton was on board as a guest host this week and introduced the show with a WWE “must say” – “we are on the road to WrestleMania.” She then introduced R-Truth and they tried to come up with a nickname for them using both their names as Charly always does with the “CharTruth.” Also missing was a stupid 24/7 moment with Truth either mourning the loss of his “baby” or celebrating its presence.

Kayla went right into the big news of the night celebrating Bobby Lashley’s ultimate victory over The Miz. Truth joined in that he was really happy for Lashley.

(Morgan’s Analysis: Okay, a little strange since Lashley is a heel, but hey, he did beat the tar out of Miz tonight, so I will allow Truth to have this moment.)

– While the beat down of Miz played full screen, Truth prattled on a bit, but it was cool to watch the beat down again. Kayla moved things on to what happened with Randy Orton backstage during her interview with him. The upshot here was that Alexis is really creepy and Randy is really “shook up” by what is going on. They moved quickly away from this and introduced their first guests: Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax.

(Morgan’s Analysis: Yup, these two again. One of the bad things about WWE’s pandemic reduced roster is that they keep recycling the guests on these shows (Raw Talk and Talking Smack) to the point of the wrestlers having nothing new to say, regardless of the current feud they are in. On Talking Smack, it is not as bad as Paul Heyman can lead a segment wherever he wants. Unfortunately on Raw Talk they do not have this luxury.)

– Rather than coming out as bad ass wrestlers, Shayna and Nia went for bad comedy by making it seem like they don’t know who Kayla is and what she could possibly be doing in the interview seat. Anyway, after a quick mention of their respective matches tonight, Kayla went right to the Tag Team Championship match on NXT this week and asked them if they had concerns. Shayna started to talk about how she had dominated NXT for two years, but rather than letting this sink in, Nia kept talking over her and Truth kept cracking jokes.

– Rather than building this match by building up their opponents, for some reason Shayna and Nia were scripted to tear them down. She called Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez the junior varsity. The rest of this segment was just a lot more of the shrill comments from this duo. It finally ended with Nia stating that she would ultimately beat Asuka for the Raw Women’s Championship and Shayna and her arguing with one another.

(Morgan’s Analysis: I guess this segment was a chance to promote the Wednesday NXT show, but quite frankly I’m thinking they would have been better off having Kai and Gonzalez on the show.)

– From there Elias and Ryker joined the show. Kayla brought up the angle from the night about Elias wanting to collaborate with Bad Bunny with Elias continuing in his delusion that he is a hit recording artist. They spoke about the match against Damien Priest for about 10 seconds and then Ryker went into a spiel about how Elias’ universal truth (his terrible music) has changed his life.

(Morgan’s Analysis: Elias is a delusional heel and he played that to the hilt tonight and it was just tough to watch and Kayla quickly got them off the set.)

– Finally, someone that could be interesting, Drew McIntyre. Drew came out shirtless and in jeans which was somewhat weird and started off noting that he was really hoping to stay the WWE Champion all the way from last year’s WrestleMania to this year’s, but The Miz and Lashley messed that all up.

– Before talking about his match with Sheamus, Kayla asked how he felt about the championship match between Miz and Lashley and Drew said he would have bet everything he had on Lashley winning. He also noted that a match at WrestleMania between Lashley and Drew McIntyre would be something special.

(Morgan’s Analysis: This was a good moment, but unfortunately the scripting called for Kayla to ask Truth to give Drew some advice about losing a title (yes, the 24/7 title) and Truth went on a illogical tangent that totally diluted the tension that Drew had just brought to the show with his sincere conviction about a match between himself and Lashley.)

-Drew was able to bring things back discussing his knockdown, drag out match with Sheamus and ended things with a sincere statement that he was looking forward to hopefully getting in the ring with Lashley and getting his title back.

– With that, Kayla again reminded us that Fastlane was in three weeks followed quickly on the road to you know whereby WrestleMania, and we are out.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Another pretty bad Raw Talk this week despite Kayla and some saving grace by Drew at the end. However, I will say again, Truth ruined the Drew segment with his ridiculous scripting. Please get him off the show. Let MVP co-host. They need somebody who can carry a segment when the guests are weak. Luckily the show was a relatively brief at 22 minutes, so it was not complete torture. I guess you can tell I really didn’t like it and if pressed I would tell you to zip through the early stuff and watch Drew’s segment which started at the 16:30 mark.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S RAW TALK REPORT: 2/22 WWE RAW TALK REPORT: Riddle talks Morrison, Lana & Naomi discuss tag team strategy, and more