WWE returned to the USA network for Monday Night Raw last night (Mar. 9, 2015) from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with all the latest build to the upcoming WrestleMania 31 pay-per-view (PPV) scheduled for later this month in Santa Clara. Well, that's to say this was a show ahead of it but they didn't do much building for it at all.

Click here to get full results with the live blog. Let's get to reacting to all the night's events.

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Psycho Cena

For a minute there, I thought WWE had learned something and were writing John Cena's character like he's actually a good guy. He runs into Rusev, who laughs him off, but admits "hey, Stephanie was right, I got a little too big for my britches there, but don't worry, I've learned."

Nope.

Instead, he stuck to the "America is everything, speak ill of it and I'll murder you" narrative, which was really just his in to get back at Rusev for the slight. Naturally, Rusev took the bait and ran Cena down, which led to Jokin' John going all Psycho Cena and destroying the Bulgarian Brute.

When I say "destroy" I mean that quite literally. He destroyed everything. The feud, the pending match, the US champion, the heat of a top heel, his own credibility as a babyface (as if he had it to begin with), the bookers credibility to craft a coherent story (as if they had that to begin with); all of it. Destroyed.

Cena took Rusev down, slapped the STF on, and held it until his foe passed out. Then he got some water, woke Rusev back up, and did it again. He only stopped when Lana got on the microphone, screaming and begging him to quit, finally giving in and accepting a match at WrestleMania 31 while Rusev tapped with BOTH hands.

So, essentially, he pulled the same stunt Seth Rollins did to get The Authority back in power despite condemning Rollins for doing so. Except this might be even worse because he didn't actually have that intention here, it was just a glorious byproduct of his actual intentions.

Pain.

That's literally all it was. Just a dude all enraged and murdering another dude, then reviving him just to murder him again and only stopping once he got what he originally wanted but had forgotten about in his murderous rage.

Can't wait to see if the babyface can overcome the dastardly heel at Wrestle... oh wait, never mind.

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STOP IT

"I've been called a vigilante but I'm more than that. I'm the face of retribution. I am the silencer of injustice. I am Sting. And I've been watching you. I know first hand how power and ego like yours can corrupt and destroy lives. When WCW perished, it fell under the watch of a broken authority. I tried to save WCW ... I failed. I know pain -- the pain of loss. And after WrestleMania, Triple H, you will too. You talk about control but you cannot control vengeance. You will be the one to collapse beneath your thirst for control and realize that I control your destiny. My loyalty never wavered. Despite your lies, your loyalty is to yourself. You need to be taken down, and I've been waiting 14 years to do it. Triple H ... at WrestleMania ... game over."

Sting spent 14 years afraid to death to sign with WWE both because he was consistently getting a great deal from TNA while they could still offer as much and because he was certain the creative brain trust at WWE would screw up his character.

He was right.

The problem, as usual, is the fact that no one can make up their mind on what he's supposed to be and what the story actually is. First, he's THE VIGILANTE, the silent warrior who rights the (major) wrongs in the pro wrestling world.

Triple H had a problem with that and wanted a confronation to work it out and naturally, that leads to a match.

Now, however, Sting has become the guy who tried his hardest to save WCW but failed, in part because of Triple H. And because of that, he's been waiting 14 years to do something about it because ... uh ... wait, what?

We should have known WWE would get a hold of Sting and immediately make it a "WWE vs. WCW" angle, even if it makes no sense to do so. Why would Sting wait 14 years? Sting's promo read as though Triple H has been in power that long and Sting is finally doing something about it but that's not true, and even if it was what the hell took so long?

Meanwhile, why on Earth is Sting talking? What was the purpose of airing this promo at all? What's worse, they had Sting do the promo but altered his voice so it didn't sound like him. There is not a single logical reason I can think of for why they would do this. Not one.

They let him be the silent guardian for all of three appearances before having him do a promo -- because in WWE you MUST do a fucking promo -- and now he's just some dopey guy with a gimmicked voice who never shows up anyway so who the hell cares about any of this.

He's also 55 and even Triple H is admitting he's not sure what the match is going to look like.

To hell with this.

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STUPID! STUPID!

We already went over how stupid this storyline with Randy Orton is. The idea that WWE took a super hot returning babyface and immediately had him join back up with his old crew, the same folks who took him out for four months, still boggles the mind.

We wanted to cheer him when he got back, not be made to sit on our hands while waiting for him to finish up with his devious plan to get back in tight before turning.

Again.

Really, it's been a lame repeat of the same story they told before he left. We didn't need to see it again.

Last night showed us exactly why: Everyone involved here looks so stupid it's physically painful. Let's say we run with the idea of Orton thinking it a good idea to act close to the Authority to get back at Rollins. Why would he think anyone would buy it after what happened? Why would anyone buy it?

Okay, fair enough, WWE runs the segment at the top of the show essentially calling attention to as much with Orton joking (not joking) that the heels are all complete idiots kissing his ass and he's just going to turn and kill Rollins and it's going to be glorious. And while there were a few distrusting glances, everyone just sort of rolled with it.

Rollins was downright enthusiastic about it. "He's just kidding, dudes, we're having so much fun, aren't we?" And so earnest. Like he actually never once doubted Orton's sincerity and was quite literally getting upset at others who did.

Naturally, this culminated in a main event angle -- one that called for WrestleMania headliner Roman Reigns to play second fiddle despite the fact that his opponent, WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar was in the building -- where Orton predictably turned on Rollins and laid a stiff beating on him.

Almost as stiff as what Cena did to Rusev.

So stiff, in fact, that Rollins, on top of being a complete idiot, was decimated to such a degree that he appears to be no match for Orton. Or, if you're looking at it another way, this was the payoff. The babyface got his revenge.

Time to move on, right?

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Santa Clara Screwjob

Paul Heyman is a really, really good promo.

We know this. He cut arguably the greatest promo of all time after Brock Lesnar broke Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleMania 30 last year. He's the guy in charge of making sure you understand how important the WWE world heavyweight champion actually is.

He's actually too good at it.

Maybe it's just me here but that promo last night felt like a babyface promo for a dominant dude who the system is trying to prevent from going rogue. They're starting to go full reality era here but doing so made Lesnar come off more like a babyface then ever before.

This man has moved mountains. He's overcome every challenge in front of him, all of them seemingly insurmountable. Now, he's thinking of moving on to a new challenge and WWE is scared because he still has the title. So Heyman alludes to the possibility that we might be looking at another Montreal Screwjob scenario but he wants to be clear that if anyone actually tries that shit with his client, the only way they're leaving Levi Stadium is in a body bag.

And while that sounds fantastical and over the top and potentially like something a dickhead would say, it comes off like a hero who is facing more adversity and is squaring his shoulders to fight against it.

This also served to take a lot of focus away from Roman Reigns, but even putting that attention back on him, wouldn't he then be the guy tasked with helping follow through on a potential screwjob? Wouldn't that then make him the heel?

I'm all for telling a layered story with many moving parts but this is where the reality stuff falls short.

I liked Heyman's promo but it tried to do too much. I like the basic outline of what the story could be, but are we sure Brock is leaving? If that's the case, perhaps they should hammer home that he plans on taking the title with him and Reigns should get in his face to say that no, you can go back to UFC but that belt is ours (motion to the crowd to give them the sense of ownership) and it's staying here with us.

That's against what they've pushed so hard so far, that "everyone is telling Reigns he can't do it". Those two messages don't mix, so if WWE could uncross the signals they're trying to send with their most important program leading into the most important show of the year, that would be great.

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The rest of this nonsense

Intercontinental yeah: R-Truth is charming the hell out of me during his spots on commentary. I might be the only one, though. Meanwhile, Bad News Barrett can't win a match, and it's become clear that WWE is just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. There are a lot of guys with motivations we can't be clear on who badly want a title no one cares about. By the way, the way you get people to care about a title is by taking two good pro wrestlers and having them wrestle a good pro wrestling match for possession of it. It's that simple, folks. Wrestling is not that hard.

Our savior Stephanie: Big Show & Kane vs. Erick Rowan & Ryback was a real match booked for this show, presumably because no one in WWE pays attention to the audience who consistently tells them we don't want matches like this, and wrote it so that Show and Kane would look like idiots, lose, and be sent to the corner by Mommy McMahon. What good does this do for anyone?

Wizdow: Damien Sandow should be WWE world heavyweight champion. Wiz Khalifa should never ever perform at a WWE event again.

Give Divas A Chance and all but...: Let's be real here, folks, AJ Lee and Summer Rae had an awful match whereby AJ was giving Kelly Kelly a run for her money running the ropes like they were on fire. The timing was off, the action was dull, and nothing was connecting. Later, Naomi and Natalya were given a minute and did somewhat better but how can you care with that much time, right?

Tag team gauntlet: I'm guessing WWE was running short on time with consecutive segments seeing wrestlers getting entrances while others were getting exits. There were a lot of rare production issues on this show that only accentutated how disjointed and poorly paced it all was. The work in the ring was also hardly worth paying attention to with booking that inspired no want for more. Keep in mind, we're three weeks from the biggest show of the year and champions are losing matches, heels are getting their comeuppance already, and babyfaces are all murderous psychos.

GONG: No one seemed to care about this, mostly because Undertaker didn't actually show up, instead accepting the match with some smoke from the urn, a lightning bolt to an empty chair, and Johnny Cash lyrics on the titantron. If the rest of this show wasn't such a steaming pile, I think I may have liked this. But by the time Bray Wyatt was making his way to the ring, there was no way they were saving it without The Deadman himself showing up. He didn't. There you go.

Legitimately one of the worst episodes of Monday Night Raw I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through.

Grade: F

That's it from me, Cagesiders. Now it's your turn to sound off in the comments section below with all your thoughts on last night's show. How did you like it, if you liked it at all?