Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
I liked the opening segment with Batista. He has been one of the best heels in the company over the last six months and has done what few heels do when they turn, he has completely transformed his character by stopping any of the theatrics during his ring entrance and avoiding any emotion during his promos. Even though it probably wasn’t intended, I liked how Batista demanded a rematch after John Cena talked about how he was never going to accept a rematch if he lost to Batista. I don’t know if he should have brought up the ‘lawsuit’ angle since that was something that they were doing with the Daniel Bryan/Michael Cole angle on NXT (and was brought up later in the show).
One problem that I see with the ‘lawsuit’ angles that they do in wrestling is that there are so many times when things are done outside the ring that would be obvious criminal violations but nothing is done. I understand that this is a tactic of a chickens*** heel, but the random manner in which it is used makes it as effective as the ‘we are going to reverse this decision because of the referee situation’ when there are hundreds of situations which are worse and are ignored.
I liked that they brought in Bret Hart as the new General Manager and he had a good situation to be thrown into to see how he works under pressure. I thought it was a good exchange between Bret and Batista. Batista wanted his rematch and Bret gave him a chance to face Cena at the pay per view, but Batista decided that he didn’t want it so he got shut out of the pay per view.
I thought the end of the segment was good with Batista taking the ‘If I don’t get my way, I am going home with my ball’ position and Bret not really caring what Batista was going to do since he did not try to convince Batista to stay.
The Sheamus/Mark Henry match was okay. At least we got to see Mark Henry finally have a match instead of being beaten up by Batista like he was the last few weeks. When Mark came out, the first thought I had was ‘who gets to beat Mark to get into the main event’. I liked that Mark sold the arm and could not keep Sheamus up for the press slam attempt. Sheamus did a good job of working on the arm since it showed that he was thinking about the situation and that he continues to learn from his Wrestlemania loss.
I liked how they dealt with the United States Title situation by having Bret vacate it. While there was another theory that was presented to them, this made sense. The one thing I did not like about the match for the United States title was that they had Miz in there so if he was going to win the match, the title change to Bret meant nothing.
I know that the title change has been discussed on other parts of the site, but I had no problem with the title changed based on the situation. While it might not look good that the Miz lost the title to Bret Hart, he lost due to a lot of interference. Some compared it to the way that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash won the TNA World Tag Titles, but I did not see anything wrong with the situations surrounding the way it happened. In that situation, Matt Morgan was laid out and Kevin Nash did what every WWE wrestler who cashed in Money in the Bank (and what no TNA wrestler did with the world title briefcase) did. They used the situation to get the win. It was another situation where someone else did the dirty work for them and they used that to win. I remember when Nash got the tag title brief case and when Hall returned in January, my first thought was ‘when will they have the tag titles’.
The Jon Lovitz/Maryse segment in the back was the best part of Lovitz’s appearance on the show. The way he reacted to Maryse fit with Lovitz’s prior acting roles. I guess since he is friends with Dennis Miller, it is fitting that he was one of the lackluster guest hosts.
I liked the segment with Edge, Chris Jericho, and Bret Hart segment. Edge made a lot of sense with his argument that he did not need to qualify for a match or should be in a match with an injured wrestler since that was how Randy Orton got into the match after bring part of a double count out at the pay per view. I guess Chris Jericho is done trying to make Big Show’s life miserable with The Miz after their loss on Sunday night (in addition to not being given a ‘catchy team name’ or morphed ring entrances). This may have been the best Canadian trio since Rush, Triumph, or the Rod Torkelson’s Armada featuring Herman Menderchuk.
I did not like the Divas tag match. They have done this combination of divas so many times that it gets stale. At least when a Divas match goes short on television it is not as bad as seeing a main event angle get a short match on television. I was surprised that the champion got pinned and that Maryse got the win for her team. There is the potential for some tension between Alicia and Maryse over who gets the title match. They also need to work on the camera angles when Eve throws her one foot drop kicks.
If they are going to have matches that go to commercial one minute into the match, could we please have more commercial free shows?
I thought the Miz/Truth match was okay and I am happy about the outcome because as I mentioned above, it would have made the Hart win useless (or more useless for the people who hated the title change last week). I liked the way that Miz worked on Truth’s arm during the match, but I wish that Truth would have remembered that his arm was being worked on because he was using that arm without showing any ill effects.
I wonder if we will see R Truth and Ted DiBiase battle for the US Title now or does he continue his feud with Miz? They have the built in ‘Truth turned down the Virgil job’ angle to use for Ted and Truth.
There are times when John Cena can be serious and cut a decent promo. Then there are times when he tries to turn it into a comic book hero using cheesy dialogue (great comparison Buck [if you haven’t had a chance, listen to the Over the Limit post pay per view audio]) and the promo falls flat. This was one of those promos. Since Cena never turned down a challenge, why does he need to be the aggressor when it comes to getting matches?
When the ‘Raw’s Got Talent’ segment with the Osbornes bombed, did they think that doing the same thing with Jon Lovitz would be any better? It wasn’t and might have been worse. If they wanted to do the Young Frankenstein ‘Putting on the Ritz’ homage, maybe use the version of the song from the movie, not the techno one that was remade in the 80s. It might also help for Khali to know when to pipe up during the song. At least Virgil is making three times what he made when he was with Ted Senior because he should get a raise for selling the Tommy Flanagan Nerve Pinch. At least Vince got in a Rosie O’Donnell line during the segment.
So a little blood during a pay per view is not okay, but we can see a guy pull out a glass eye. Why did they have to waste Ted DiBiase for that? Instead of being a good thing for DiBiase’s character, it felt like the Snitsky/Heidenreich segments from a few years ago when Gene admired Jon’s poetry.
The tag match of Smith and Kidd against Kozlov and Regal was too short to have an opinion other than it is a shame that they are wasting William Regal like this. The match ended up being the way to set up the debut of Jimmy and Jules Uso with Tamina. If this is a way to get Natalya in the ring, I am all in favor of this.
I have had a chance to see Jimmy and Jules wrestle in FCW and they have some potential, but I am afraid that they are being brought up too soon.
The NXT segment in the back had some potential. Some of the rookies have improved on the mic. I was expecting to hear each person pick someone different that they thought should have been eliminated so we can see them wrestle on NXT on Tuesday night. I would expect to see Otunga and Slater wrestle on NXT, but Otunga still does nothing to make me think that he will be any good in the ring and has the ‘Michael Tarver why am I here’ attitude.
So we have two ‘I’m gonna sue’ angles since Cole is still continuing his ‘I will sue Daniel Bryan over what happened’. Maybe we see Josh Mathews stop Bryan from doing anything that will get him fired and lead to Cole getting in the ring with Miz to face Mathews and Bryan.
I thought the Edge and Jericho segment in the locker room was good. They both seemed to be on the same page to try to beat John Cena. However, you knew that one of them was going to say that they would beat the other to cause some tension among the apparent partners in the alliance.
I thought the main event was okay. I was hoping to see Cena get the win so we would not know who the fourth participant in the main event would be until next week, or do a match on Superstars for a qualifying spot. I liked the submission spots during the match because of the creativity that it showed. I liked the finish of the match with Jericho hitting the Codebreaker on Cena followed by Edge hitting the spear for the win.
I really liked the shot at the end of the show with the four participants in the main event at Fatal Four Way standing in a line between the TitanTron and the ring. It will be a good way to finish up the video package for this match at the pay per view.
What to Watch on your DVR: Watch the opening segment with Batista and Bret Hart and the main event. Then watch the season finale of Chuck and the series finale of 24.
