WWE Monday Night results and observations (03/14/16): Mick Foley has a sharp gift for Dean Ambrose

A lot happened at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh Monday night when WWE made yet another stop on its road to WrestleMania.

Was all of it good? No. In fact, there was some good, some bad and other things that just left me confused.

With only two episodes of Monday Night Raw left before WrestleMania (including next week in Philadelphia), WWE is throwing a lot at the proverbial at the moment.

The only problem is that I'm not sure how much is actually sticking. There's nothing wrong with WWE having a sense of urgency at this point of the year. It's just that the execution of what are supposed to be the biggest storylines of the year has not been as fruitful as it could be for WWE.

Before I go any further, here are the full match results from Pittsburgh:

- WWE Tag Team championship – The New Day (Xavier Woods & Big E) def. Alberto Del Rio & Rusev

- Ryback def. Sin Cara

- Sami Zayn def. The Miz

- Naomi & Tamina def. Brie Bella & Alicia Fox

- The Usos def. Adam Rose & Bo Dallas

- Triple H def. Dolph Ziggler

- Neville def. Chris Jericho via disqualification

The Undertaker-McMahons melodrama is still kind of awkward

This storyline hasn't necessarily been bad. I wouldn't go that far just yet. It's just that it hasn't been nearly as good as it should being as though that it is one of the marquee matches for what is supposed to be the biggest WrestleMania of all time.

First off, everything feels kind of rushed and thrown together. I know that Shane McMahon and this story weren't WWE's top options for The Undertaker at WrestleMania. All of the injuries the company has been saddled with for months have forced the creative side of things to do a lot of reshuffling.

But that excuse is slowly but surely going out of the window. Now that we are almost a month into this story, I thought WWE would have found its footing when it came to this story, but it still feels clunky.

Take Monday night for example. Vince McMahon gives his spiel about how The Undertaker is going to destroy his son at WrestleMania. Then, on command, he brings out The Undertaker.

The Undertaker then says that no one can control him despite the fact that he's doing his bidding at WrestleMania.

Shane McMahon calls The Undertaker Vince McMahon's [word that rhymes with witch, which quickly draws the ire of the former world champion. Shane McMahon somehow dodges The Undertaker until Vince McMahon shoves him into The Undertaker, which allowed him to deliver a choke slam.

After Vince McMahon helped him, The Undertaker then turned to attack him. Vince McMahon escaped before he could do any bodily harm.

In the space of about 10 minutes, The Undertaker went from being against Vince McMahon to accepting his help to being against him all over again.

All of this is happening and for some reason, there has been no interaction between Shane McMahon and his sister Stephanie McMahon, which is where this story kind of started.

I fully expect the match at WrestleMania to be quite the spectacle, I expect The Undertaker to be as dominant as ever and I expect Shane McMahon to take some sort of crazy chance that people will leave the building in awe about, but getting there has not been the smoothest ride ever.

Roman Reigns is back and no one seemed to care

It seems like I've typed this about a thousand times over the last year, but WWE has done Roman Reigns no favors with its booking. None.

I feel like I always have to say that Reigns is talented within his own right, but it is the creative booking of WWE that hinders him. He is under a microscope as it is because everyone knows WWE wants him to be the next top star, WWE does not help him get on the good side of the fans. The company may think it is, but really isn't.

Reigns returned after a couple-week hiatus due to facial surgery. He showed up after Triple H's match with Dolph Ziggler and beat the holy crap out of him.

Reigns smashed Triple H's face up against the announce table, beat him up backstage, busted him open, hit him with a television and the only thing that stopped him were the pleas of The Usos and Mark Henry and Jack Swagger of all people.

It was seemingly the version of Reigns fans all want to see — kicking butt, taking no prisoners, not trying to be funny, you know, cool Reigns.

But WWE made a couple of mistakes Monday that if it didn't make them, Reigns would have gotten a better reaction in Pittsburgh. I say that because Reigns beat the crap out of Triple H in Boston and he got cheered and that momentum carried over to the next night in Philadelphia.

That could have happened Monday in Pittsburgh if WWE didn't make the crucial mistake of having Reigns show up after the match.

Earlier in the show, Ziggler confronted The Authority and told him that he was tired of being kicked around. It took him two years to finally muster up the courage to say anything.

He said that no matter what The Authority did to him, he was never going to quit as if he was John Cena. He also called Stephanie McMahon an idiot to which he was slapped/emasculated.

After slapping the taste out of Ziggler's mouth, Stephanie McMahon put him in a match against Triple H with the caveat that if he won, he got to have any match he wanted at WrestleMania with the exception of a WWE World Heavyweight title match.

Ziggler accepted and then proceeded to have a very good match with Triple H. WWE could have done Reigns a lot of favors by having him help Ziggler defeat Triple H.

That would have accomplished a couple of things. First, it would have actually gotten him cheered. Despite being in mid-card purgatory, the fans are still really into Ziggler and helping him would be one way to get on the fans' good side.

It would have also allowed Ziggler to choose his own WrestleMania match, which would have been at the very least intriguing. It also would give him some meaning heading into the show.

Plus, it's not like Triple H has to win every match heading into WrestleMania, especially if his opponent receives an unfair advantage. Ask Seth Rollins if WWE goes out of its way to keep its champions strong. The answer to that question would be no because Rollins had a horrible win-loss record on television during his title reign last year.

Instead, Reigns showed up after the match was already over. WWE tried to sell it as though Triple H couldn't believe he was looking at Reigns, but I'm not sure if the people bought it.

The fans in Pittsburgh didn't, as outside of two very excited women at ringside, the fans gave him a cold reception.

The beating Reigns gave to Triple H came off well, but the fans just didn't care. I don't care what city you are in, that is a problem.

Here is the top babyface returning from a couple-week hiatus to gain a measure of revenge on the top heel and he gets booed out of the building? He was literally booed out of the building. The fans kept booing as they brawled backstage.

Reigns is trying the best he can, but he can't catch a break creatively.

Mick Foley gives Dean Ambrose a present

The street fight between Brock Lesnar and Dean Ambrose is still three weeks away, but it is already pretty darn awesome.

Dean Ambrose went to the ring to talk about his WWE World Heavyweight title match against Triple H at Roadblock, but was interrupted by his opponent at WrestleMania, Lesnar, and his advocate Paul Heyman.

Heyman said that he was protecting Ambrose from Lesnar, as he was the only thing standing in the way of Lesnar decimating Ambrose yet again. Ambrose insisted that Lesnar come down to the ring for a fight, but Heyman held him back.

Heyman then quickly told everyone that this match is the true main event of WrestleMania and went backstage. However, Lesnar did not leave with him and headed toward the ring for Ambrose.

Ambrose then unzipped his leather jacket and took out a good old crowbar. Lesnar circled the ring and even attempted to get in, but eventually backed off, which was met with a sigh of relief by Heyman.

If that wasn't cool enough, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley greeted Ambrose backstage and gave him a gift. The gift: a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

Sweet Jesus! To paraphrase famous chef Emeril Lagasse, things just got kicked up another notch.

Now, I don't believe we're going to see flesh get shredded at WrestleMania, but the barbed wire baseball does represents the great equalizer for Ambrose.

How do you stop a beast? Hit him with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire or at least you attempt to.

New Day are officially good guys

The New Day couldn't be heels for too much longer, not after getting their own cereal a couple of days ago. I don't know too many heels that have their own cereal.

But the group was firmly placed into the position of babyfaces Monday night during another defense of its WWE Tag Team titles against Alberto Del Rio and Rusev.

After the pairing of Xavier Woods and Big E worked as babyfaces during the match, Woods pulled Rusev's tights to pull out the victory.

Now that would look like The New Day are what wrestling fans call "'tweeners." Those are people that neither babyface or heel, but are somewhere in between, but Eddie Guerrero was a full-fledged babyface that bragged about cheating. Hey may have cheated, but at the end of the day, Guerrero was a babyface.

And so is The New Day, especially after taking a beating after the match by all four members of the League of Nations. The New Day fought valiantly (like babyfaces), but succumbed to the numbers game.

Later in the show, League of Nations challenged New Day to a match at WrestleMania. The group didn't say it wanted the tag team titles, but just a match.

But let's turn our attention on The New Day. I'm all for the group turning heel. Even as heels they were cheered by a majority of the fans in attendance. The trio was cheered very loudly in Pittsburgh Monday night. The group sells a lot of merchandise, which is the reason why it even has its own cereal now.

Those are all signs of a babyface to me.

Ryback challenges Kalisto for some reason

In a match that no one wants to see, Ryback challenged Kalisto for the United States championship at WrestleMania.

Why? Why on earth would Ryback and Kalisto warrant a one-on-one match at the biggest show of the year?

It is nothing really against Ryback or Kalisto. If you read this blog enough, you know that I've always had a soft spot for Ryback and you would also know that I'm a big fan of Kalisto.

But WWE has done nothing with these two leading up to this point for either of them to deserve a one-on-one match at WrestleMania. If it actually happens, it wouldn't make any sense, especially since you have two ready-made one-on-one matches that haven't even been announced yet in Chris Jericho versus AJ Styles and Kevin Owens versus Sami Zayn.

Both of those matches have had significant builds compared to this Ryback-Kalisto thing. Jericho and Styles go all of the way back to the night after the Royal Rumble.

Zayn and Owens go back years on the independents, but even if you are talking just WWE/NXT, it goes back to the end of 2014.

I'm not saying that Ryback and Kalisto do not deserve to be on WrestleMania. They definitely do, but in a multi-man match for the United States title similar to what WWE did last year for the Intercontinental championship.

This angle doesn't deserve that high profile of a spot, especially if the other two matches I mentioned don't get that kind of billing.

Also, The Dudley Boyz will face The Usos at WrestleMania. Yet, we still don't know what Owens, Jericho or Styles are doing.