Deadman rises on WWE's Raw

THE UNDERTAKER made his long-awaited return to WWE at the end of a very good edition on Monday night Raw this week. The Deadman, who has been off TV since last year's Wrestlemania season, appeared to interrupt Triple H while he in the middle of a 'performance appraisal' of Raw GM John Laurinaitis. Taker made his full entrance to the ring, and pointed towards the Wrestlemania sign hanging from the rafters, seemingly indicating that he wants a rematch at Mania with The Game. Hunter, however, simply patted Taker patronisingly on the arm, and left the ring to close the show. It was a fascinating finale to a tremendous episode of WWE's flagship show. So often in January WWE ups their game as Wrestlemania season approaches, and this was a big indication that this will be the case this year too. Also booked on the show was a major meeting of World Champ Daniel Bryan and WWE title holder CM Punk, and the pair had a sterling TV match. It ended with Chris Jericho attacking CM Punk to kick off the expected programme with these two leading to a potential show-stealing Wrestlemania title match. Randy Orton made a return to Raw after a short absence with a cracking match against perennial star man Dolph Ziggler. The match was augmented by Wade Barrett commenting on it from a skybox, and hyping Barrett v Orton for Smackdown. Between the two aforementioned matches there was approaching half an hour of quality wrestling —: something not seen nearly enough in either of the main two company's TV shows. The main story arc of the show was Laurinaitis' job being in jeopardy, and his interaction with Punk and Bryan, and later William Regal was priceless. Laurinaitis has unexpectedly grown into a terrific TV character, playing a new twist on the heel authority figure. Triple H addressed Laurinaitis in the final segment of the show, stringing him along and making him beg for his job. It seemed that Hunter was about to dismiss Laurinaitis when the familiar bell tolled and we saw Undertaker's return. It seems extremely likely that the long-rumoured Triple H v Undertaker rematch will happen at Mania, but after Hunter's patronising pat on the arm, it remains to be seen exactly how we get there.    THE SUN .