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Here are my thoughts on some of the major storylines on the show:
What Happens When The Nexus and the Superstars Cannot Touch
They started off tonight’s show with a look back at the attack on Vince McMahon on last week’s show. In one of the first ‘Messages from a GM’ moments of the night, we found out that the Nexus would not be attacking any WWE Superstars tonight or they would be fired immediately. We would not be seeing the Nexus getting beaten up because the Superstars were told that they would be suspended if they laid their hands on any member of the Nexus.
This announcement threw a monkey wrench in John Cena’s attempt to unify the locker room against Nexus because Cena wanted Sheamus to be part of a team to take on those evil Nexus people who have made their reputation based on sneak attacks.
Since the Nexus couldn’t attack any Superstars, they decided to follow the letter of the ruling. Since the people filming the action are not ‘superstars’, Skip Sheffield attacked one of the random employees while Darren Young was adjusting Josh Mathews’ tie. Then they had another opportunity when Jerry Lawler brought Ricky Steamboat to the ring to show a clip from Steamboat’s new DVD. While the Nexus Attack Warning Level went to orange from yellow with Ricky and Lawler in the ring, once Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, Mike Rotundo, and Michael Hayes came to the ring, the alarms sounded like a World Cup soccer game.
In what could be described as a surgical and precision strike, the Nexus slowly took care of each of the legends in the ring until they finished with Ricky Steamboat with the usual clothesline from Skip Sheffield. Instead of the fireman’s carry slam from Wade Barrett, who was in front of the board (or you can read Mike’s Elite News Story about Wade), David Otunga gave Steamboat a spinebuster. They finished with Justin Gabriel on the top turnbuckle for the 450 Splash.
Since there were the strict rules about no contact between the Raw Roster and Nexus, it gave an explanation for why there was no help or presence of the Raw wrestlers since the Cena and McMahon attacks looked odd with no help for either person. Maybe they could have had the Cena Alliance (which could have coincidentally have been six men) approach the ring and either have Nexus ignore them or leave the ring once they got done with their planned attack.
I thought that they recovered a bit with this angle. While I thought the segment with the Legends and Nexus went a bit too long, it made sense because as soon as it was said that Nexus couldn’t do anything to WWE Superstars, you figured that announcers, ringside personnel, and people in the back were not safe. Without Wade Barrett on the show, the other six looked confused and did not have a strong mouthpiece. I was a bit surprised that Tarver was doing the talking because you would think that they would have Otunga doing the talking if the best guy on the mic was not there. I hope that they will have Wade back in control shortly because Barrett’s absence is worse for the group than the loss of Daniel Bryan.
I would think that we are going to see the Not Ready for Prime Time Players known as Nexus ready to have their first match announced. Like Mike mentioned in his headline, it would make sense for the Legends to be the ones to take on the rookies, but I would hope that if they do that, they are going to use people who do not have past injuries that will impede their work.
Hey, there is a Pay Per View in a Few Weeks
Unlike last month’s build for the Fatal Four Way pay per view on the Raw brand, we got to see a lot of discussion of the Money in the Bank pay per view including the announcement that despite using up his rematch on last week’s Raw, thanks to the interference by the Nexus Seven, John Cena gets another shot at Sheamus. This time the match will take place in a steel cage.
We also found out the names of the eight participants for the Raw brand Money in the Bank Match. We have some of the top guys on the roster with Chris Jericho, Edge, and Randy Orton. We have a few up and coming stars like Evan Bourne, John Morrison, and the Miz. We have someone who the former United States Champion with R Truth. And we have Ted DiBiase.
As Dave mentioned on his hotline last week, it will be interesting to see what build we will get on the usual ‘really push the pay per view’ episode since it falls on a holiday. There will probably be one or two more matches to be announced, maybe a rematch of the six person tag match from Fatal Four Way or a tag title match based on the issues between the Hart Dynasty and the Usos and Tamina.
Most of the top names from the Raw brand are included in matches on the pay per view already so you would expect it to be towards the end of the show, but they could end up putting it on first so they would tease the winner threatening to cash in the briefcase on the same show.
Is the Odd Couple Done while we get a New One?
It looks like there must be a balance in the WWE with pairings or things go out of whack. One of the most stable teams over the last year has been Great Khali and his brother/translator Runjin Singh. On Monday night, when asked to translate Khali’s comments about Nexus, Runjin Singh went rogue and decided to insult his brother instead.
While the Happy Hindu Couple is done, it looks like Santino Marella has wooed his giant Russian foe to form a tag team. After a number of matches between the two where it looked like Santino’s attempts to get Kozlov to form an international super tag team were futile, it only took William Regal attacking Santino after Kozlov’s match with Santino to bring the two men together.
I wonder if this means that we will see Santino and Kozlov winning the tag titles.
Here are my thoughts on the rest of the show
It was a bit odd that they would have Wade Barrett at WWE Headquarters to explain his actions and not be back in Philadelphia because I am sure that they are not meeting during the show and Stamford is not too far from Philadelphia.
With the numerous e-mails during the opening segment of the show to interrupt the promos, I wonder if they will ever have the General Manager start sending e-mails during boring promos to replace the crowd chants of ‘what’? Maybe Steve Austin is the mysterious general manager?
I really hope they get rid of the current notification for Michael Cole to read the General Manager’s orders. Please start putting them on the TitanTron because the beeping is annoying.
I thought Sheamus’ promo was good. It was funny to hear him steal John Cena’s ‘The Champ is Here’. If only he added a ‘Fella’ to the end of it. Sheamus also did a good job of putting over the attack by Nexus during the match at Fatal Four Way and last week, stating that he still would have won without their help. When Sheamus talked about all of the good that would happen since John Cena used up his rematch, was there a little voice in the back of your head saying ‘It isn’t over . . . fella, Cena will be wrestling Sheamus at the pay per view.’
While Sheamus did not think that he would be wrestling Cena again for his title, wouldn’t Sheamus still see the tacky orange t-shirts and listen to the slogans? Would Cena be barred from commenting on Sheamus’ pigment issues since they are not going to be wrestling in singles matches?
I thought Cena’s promo came off too ‘cartoony’ even for John Cena when you consider the things that he has done in the past. While it made sense that the Raw wrestlers would want to unite against Nexus, but shouldn’t Cena have asked his buddies before going to Sheamus?
I did not like how Cena changed his tune on the beep of an e-mail because one minute, he goes from wanting Sheamus to work with him to wanting another title match.
It is always good to hear the Official Cage Lowering Music on WWE television.
Why would any WWE announcer or official ever say that a steel cage prevents interference since we have seen interference numerous times in steel cage matches.
If Nexus were given contracts and attacked people for no reason but were then given a directive to not attack any WWE Superstars, why isn’t it suggested that Tamina and the Usos will be punished since we have no idea if they were the opponents in the six person mixed tag match. It could have been DiBiase, Maryse, and Virgil.
I don’t know which move I would be more afraid of taking: Tamina’s Daughter of Superfly Splash, David Otunga’s Spinebuster, or Justin Gabriel’s 450 Splash.
I did not like the Josh Mathews interview segments with the WWE wrestlers to ask about the Nexus situation. The one positive was that we see that the locker room could be united.
The Marella/Kozlov match was not really a match, but more an angle to put Santino and Vladimir together even though the stipulation mentioned by the announcers was that Santino had to win for them to be partners.
I wonder who will be the person who will come forward and say that they can speak Hindi to translate for Khali.
Is it really the best thing to have a tertiary character, who happens to be on the creative team, be the person who gets over in a segment that includes a wrestler?
In the year that they have done the guest host gimmick, there have been some highs and lows. Unless Rob wanted to direct something, they really wasted him on this show. So he came out to announce the eight participants in the Money in the Bank match for the Raw brand and confront Edge, who was on the TitanTron?
As I mentioned above with the Nexus attack on the Legends, every time a non-Superstar was on television, I thought they were going to be a victim of a six on one attack.
The Sheamus/Mark Henry match was too short to really give an opinion about the quality of the match. They had build Henry a little better in the time that he has been on Raw, but they did a lot to hurt him this week because it only took a pump kick to finish him off.
The Nexus segment with Josh Mathews was average at best because Wade Barrett was not there and he is the best on the mic by far. The best part of the segment was seeing Darren Young adjusting Josh’s tie. The Sheffield attack on the backstage employee was a good first strike to confirm what a lot of people thought would happen with Nexus.
I thought the Steamboat segment was a good way to get publicity for the Steamboat DVD as well as get some legends in the ring who do not get television time other than to act as CSIs after attacks by other wrestlers, and to advance the Nexus storyline.
With the amount of talent that was in the ring, how can there be so many failures in developmental? I know that these guys are on the road with the Raw and Smackdown brands, but couldn’t they rotate these guys down to Tampa a week at a time to teach the developmental talent?
I thought the comments from the legends were good, even the ones that were a bit in character. I thought Hayes was great with the comments that he just wanted to get on television. When Arn was talking about the five best, I wonder if he wanted to say someone whose name rhymes with Nick Clair?
While I liked the way that Nexus went after the Legends one by one, it felt like that segment went a bit too long. At least there weren’t any long wrestling matches other than the main event so it wasn’t taking time from the wrestling on the show.
Did we really need Michael Cole telling us numerous times through the night that Nexus couldn’t touch any superstars without being fired and that the Superstars couldn’t touch Nexus without being suspended? I know that people in the media think that wrestling fans aren’t the smartest people, but anyone with an attention span of more than two minutes and an elementary school education could remember.
I thought Josh Mathews did a great job at the announce table replacing Jerry Lawler after the Nexus attack. If it was a tryout to see if he could handle live television, I thought he passed. Of course I am not on WWE creative so that means nothing for the people in Stamford.
The Divas tag match was a bit sloppy and was the standard Divas match from the Raw brand. I don’t know what the reason is, but it is a shame that they are not giving Gail more because she is the best worker of the four in the match. While I am not the biggest fan of Maryse, I wonder what she did to become so insignificant in the Divas division after getting pushed like crazy. Maybe her punishment is to be paired with Ted DiBiase.
Speaking of Ted DiBiase, with the way that he has been pushed, maybe they need to change his gimmick to ‘The Stimulus Package’ instead of ‘Million Dollar Trust Fund Baby’
I liked the way that they hyped the match between the eight Money in the Bank participants as a MEGA MATCH. I wonder if Smackdown will try to top it with a SUPER DUPER MATCH.
The main event was okay. When they announced that the main event would be an eight man MEGA MATCH, my first thought was that Evan Bourne is going to pin Ted DiBiase. I got half of the equation right but Bourne was there before Orton got the pin on DiBiase. Bourne continued his well deserved push in this match and he was involved in a majority of the match for his team. I liked the interaction between Jericho and Bourne in the match since they had done so much against each other in the last few weeks. Right before the end of the match, I was wondering if Randy Orton had been in the match to that point. Then he came in and hit a single RKO to pin Ted DiBiase.
The use of the ladders before and after the match were a good visual image to have for the video packages leading up to the matches at the pay per view. Does Randy Orton grabbing the briefcase mean that he will not win?
Since a number of the wrestlers in the match are in the normal rotation of challengers for the WWE Title, I was hoping that more of the midcard wrestlers would have been put in the match. I hope Smackdown decides to do that because they have a propensity to push new talent.
What to watch on DVR: Sheamus’ promo; the Legends/Nexus segment (but you might want to fast forward through parts of the attack); the main event
