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RAW THOUGHTS: MAYBE JOHN CENA SHOULD CALL DR. PHIL TO COUNSEL HIS TEAM; MIZ TEASES US ONE MORE TIME

This week’s Raw did not have the shocking revelation that Chris Jericho, Edge, and John Cena would be part of a team to face Nexus or that they would be joined by Bret Hart. However, we were left wondering if there will be seven people to face Nexus at SummerSlam. We also saw the continuing drama over the Money in the Bank briefcase between Sheamus and The Miz. Instead of making things seem awkward enough, we got to see them in a tag match against another team of people who did not get along. Nexus got to show how well they work together in the ring against seven of the toughest men you will find on Superstars.

I thought this was a solid show that had me surprised when the main event started because it did not feel like it was time for the main event. This show left a number of questions for next week’s show as we move closer to the biggest event of the Summer, something that Jeremy Piven would call SummerFest.

Here are my thoughts on the show:

Since last week’s show ended with the Cena Avengers lining up against Nexus, it makes sense that we would start this week off with John Cena in the ring. I thought there were some good parts in Cena’s promo but too much of it came off as the typical Cena promo that tries for the juvenile references instead of trying to appeal to the entire audience. I guess Cena has heard enough of the SuperCena references that he decided to run with it himself. But he decided to run a bit too far and a brief reference that might have worked was run into the ground. Cena did set up the dynamic of what could happen to the show if Nexus is able to win at SummerSlam and the need for a unified front.

Since a unified front would benefit Team Cena, if you had ‘there would be dissension’ in the ‘How will Team Cena co-exist’ pool, you had to be happy with your choice.

I thought Chris Jericho did a good job to help the opening segment. While Jericho was willing to join the team after being attacked by people he thought he had an alliance with, he was not going to sit back and be a happy lieutenant when he always wants to be the general. While he is not doing it for the fans or anyone else on the team, he wants to be the one in charge. Since Wade Barrett has said that he learned a lot from Jericho, wouldn’t it make sense for Jericho to be in charge since he will be able to anticipate what Nexus will do?

I thought that when Cena told Jericho the team could be his, it minimized the importance of the power struggle. Cena is the one who put the team together so he should want to be the one in charge. To give it up like that doesn’t match with how important he has said that it is to defeat Nexus.

I thought that the strongest part of Cena’s promo was when he started talking about how it was for the business and not for personal glory, but then it got sprinkled with the Cena dust and lost a bit of its importance.

While it set the tone for the night with the three pairs of feuding partners on Team Cena, I liked the end of Chris Jericho’s promo where he said that he was going after Cena because of what he said about how Cena was as bad as Nexus for the health of the company.

For the veteran readers of the site, I wonder if John Cena compared himself to Aquaman to see if Jess McGrath would make his semi-annual appearance on the site since he made sure in his Elite Audio appearances with Mike Johnson about his appreciation of Aquaman.

If you had Degeneration X in the ‘Which WWE Superstar will be referenced as the General Manager this week’ pool, congratulations.

I was a little worried when I saw Jey Uso come out to the ring to face Randy Orton because the Usos have had some very good matches against David Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd and the feud between the two groups has been well done so far.

The match was too short to get an impression about how Jey Uso can do as a singles wrestler. I hope that this is not a sign that the Usos are going to be moving down the card.

I thought the post match attack by Jimmy on Orton was okay and furthered the Sheamus/Orton storyline for SummerSlam as well as the Miz/Sheamus storyline over the briefcase.

I thought it was okay that they did the ‘Miz is going to cash in the briefcase . . . wait he isn’t because someone stopped him’ for a second week. However, I hope that they don’t do the same thing every week. I don’t mind Miz getting into Sheamus’ head by coming to the ring during Sheamus’ matches or promos or even doing the same to Orton to let him know that if Orton can beat Sheamus at SummerSlam, he will be watching Orton for when he is most vulnerable.

Did Edge lose the game of Rock/Paper/Scissors to have issues with Great Khali among the top guys on Team Cena?

I thought that Singh had turned on Khali at the start of the Nexus angle. Is he jealous that someone else is insulting Khali instead of him?

Did Singh translate something about the match between Edge and Khali before Khali said it? And did he get a Hindi to Cenglish dictionary to suggest that Khali called Edge a nincompoop?

Who would have thought that since Miz and Sheamus were arguing in the ring that the General Manager would go to the ‘wrestling handbook’ for the ‘if you are not friends, you will make fun tag team partners’ to face the other arguing couple?

Since we didn’t get a finish to the Edge/Khali match (and based upon what would happen later in the show), I guess Khali is still on the team for now.

Since Nexus has shown that they are not going to back down to anyone, why did they let Khali escape? Was it to let him warn everyone of what Nexus could do? If that was the purpose, who would Khali tell since he doesn’t speak English (for storyline purposes)?

With the team that Nexus faced, I guess you had to expect that they would win the match. I was a bit surprised that every member of Nexus survived. I guess Yoshi, Goldust, and Mark Henry will still have Superstars where they can thrive. I was a bit surprised at how easily Kidd and Smith were eliminated in the match. I don’t think Bourne was hurt as much with the loss since it was seven on one by the time he got pinned and he got some offense in during the match.

I would not have minded seeing one of the members of Nexus get eliminated during the match. With the promos that were cut after the match, it would have built on the fact that they were still a cohesive unit one of the members showing potential weakness. It could have made them more dangerous leading up to match at SummerSlam.

I liked the Sheamus and Miz segment in the locker room. Sheamus did a good job telling the fella that he won’t cash in the briefcase because he has failed the last two weeks to get his chance. I also like that Miz was not going to back down to Sheamus and that he was confident enough that he was going to cash in after their match. I also liked the image of Sheamus punching the briefcase and seeing it go across the room.

After the Sheamus/Miz segment, I was thinking that Miz was going to let Sheamus stay in the match and not make any tags so Sheamus would be weakened.

When the Bellas came to the ring, I was wondering how Jillian was going to lose the match this week so I was surprised to see Alicia come out as Brie’s opponent.

I did not think the Divas match was that good, but I did like that Jillian came to the ring to try to stop the Bellas from doing their switch.

With the current state of the Divas roster, I wonder if Alicia’s attack of Jillian was a face turn or just acknowledgement that Alicia is not working with anyone and doesn’t want any help.

The Morrison/DiBiase match was more a storyline to continue the feud between Ted and Morrison as well as set up the tension between R Truth and Morrison because they have been such good friends and they are teammates of Cena’s at SummerSlam.

I thought that Randy Orton’s promo in the back was a good way to complete the circle that includes Sheamus and Miz. It also shows that Orton doesn’t care who he has to take care of to win the title, he will become the WWE Champion again.

I thought the main event was okay and was the best match of the night. I liked that there was some tension at the start of the match with both teams over who would start. I was a bit surprised that both teams worked so well together as a team, but it was different than the usual situation where people who will be facing each other in a match and are forced to be a tag team and they always fight instead of work together. That was until the end of the match when Jericho hit the Codebreaker on Cena when Miz distracted the referee. I also liked how Miz made the blind tag at the end to get the pin on Cena. It gives Miz a win over Cena so he only has four or five dozen more to make up.

The post match situation set up the differences between the two teams at SummerSlam. With all six men coming to the ring to break into their separate discussion groups, I wonder when we will get the pep talk to unify everyone for SummerSlam. If that happens, I wonder if it will be from John Cena or Bret Hart. I think it would be funny to see them arguing the show before SummerSlam and then see Khali starting to talk in English and seeing everyone else with their mouths agape shocked that Khali can speak English.

I think it would have made a good visual to show Nexus either watching the closing segment from the stage or on a monitor in the back. This way we could see if Nexus was getting overconfident leading into the match.

What to watch on DVR: Chris Jericho’s promo; Nexus Elimination Match (to see how they work together in the match); Miz and Sheamus’ promos; closing segment of Team Cena’s apparent implosion.

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