WWE Raw preview (Mar. 6, 2023): John Cena isn’t done winning championship gold in WWE

Raw airs tonight (Mar. 6) with a live show from TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. This is the third episode of Raw during the six week build towards WrestleMania 39, which takes place on Apr. 1 and Apr. 2.

John Cena isn’t done winning championship gold in WWE

John Cena returns to WWE tonight for the first time in 2023. It sounds like United States Champion Austin Theory plans to confront the face that used to run the place. This might be part-timer Cena’s only WWE television appearance before WrestleMania 39, which means the segment could end with Cena vs. Theory official for the biggest pro wrestling show of the year.

Cena is one of the most accomplished world champions in WWE history, but it was his run of open challenges with the US title in 2015 that helped some of his longtime critics finally come around on him. The idea of Cena defeating Theory for that belt seems absurd if John is going to disappear from WWE again right after WrestleMania, but in kayfabe Cena should be the heavy favorite to win, given his track record of success at the highest levels in WWE.

Now that WrestleMania is a two night event, WWE might have some creative flexibility to actually book Cena to beat Theory for the title on night one and create a feel-good WrestleMania moment, before dropping the belt to someone else in an impromptu match on night two. Perhaps that’s not the most likely scenario, but the point remains that it shouldn’t be assumed Cena is walking into WrestleMania simply to put over Theory and call it a night.

As far as tonight’s angle is concerned, Austin needs to be at the top of his game on the mic, because that is where Cena’s biggest strength lies. If Theory struggles to go toe-to-toe with Cena on the mic, fans will have a harder time seeing him as someone who belongs in the same ring with John at WrestleMania.

The title scene

Asuka beat Carmella last week, and now Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair gets to do the same thing tonight in a singles match.

WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns finally shared the same ring with Cody Rhodes last week on SmackDown. The part-time Tribal Chief isn’t advertised for tonight’s show, so Cody might have to deal with other members of The Bloodline in his place.

Speaking of The Bloodline, Sami Zayn goes one-on-one with Jimmy Uso tonight, while Kevin Owens has to fight the unbeaten Solo Sikoa. It’s widely assumed that Owens and Zayn will challenge the Usos for the WWE tag team titles at WrestleMania, even though the Owens/Zayn relationship is still broken and Jey Uso is currently away from The Bloodline doing his own thing.

Becky Lynch and Lita are the new WWE women’s tag team champions, thanks to an assist from Trish Stratus. Will Damage CTRL come looking for a rematch? How does Trish factor into plans for WrestleMania 39?

Other stuff to keep an eye on

- YouTube star Logan Paul returns to Raw tonight for a face-to-face confrontation with Seth Rollins. I bet Paul will find someone else on the Raw roster to join his side and ambush Rollins.

- Johnny Gargano vs. Finn Balor is also on the card. Gargano has some momentum on his side after defeating Otis last week, but The Judgment Day has the numbers advantage, as always. Will part-timer Edge show up to make a match with Balor official for WrestleMania?

- Brock Lesnar vs. Omos is actually a thing that’s happening at WrestleMania. Part-timer Lesnar isn’t advertised for tonight’s show, so that means we’ll probably be subjected to another inconsequential Omos squash match tonight.

- Bobby Lashley doesn’t want to deal with Bray Wyatt’s kiddie games, but it appears he doesn’t have a choice. Lashley fought off a surprise attack from Uncle Howdy last week on SmackDown, so Wyatt and Howdy will probably have better plan of attack for tonight. Or maybe they’ll just play with some puppets instead. Who really knows?

- Nikki Cross is stalking Candice LeRae, and her actions actually helped Candice beat Piper Niven last week. Does that mean Piper will try to destroy Nikki next?

- Rick Boogs hasn’t done much on Raw since beating The Miz. Maybe tonight he’ll be the guy who serves another loss to that losing loser Baron Corbin.

- If Dolph Ziggler can’t get his rematch against Mustafa Ali, he might have to wait until the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal to get a piece of Ali.

- Where the f*ck is Miro Alexa Bliss?

What will you be looking for on Raw?