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Taking out the closing segment, this was a good episode of Raw because it built up the Elimination Chamber pay per view on Sunday, Wrestlemania 27, and the 600th episode of Smackdown on Friday. We also found out that there is a change to the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match for the World Title.
Make sure to check out Buck’s thoughts on the main site.
I am going to take a different perspective on the show than Buck does and I will not be looking at the show as it progressed. I am going to use a similar format that I use for the NXT Thoughts on the main page of the site.
Here are my thoughts on the show:
A Tale of Two Promos: This show was bookended by promos and it showed why sequels are usually not as good as the originals.
The show started off with a promo from John Cena. John Cena is someone who is hit or miss with his promos. When he is serious, he can cut good promos, but when he tries to be ‘Rock Junior’, he is often making you wish that Dwayne Johnson was in the building to show Cena how it is done. I thought he did a decent job talking about the Elimination Chamber match to determine who faces the WWE Champion at Wrestlemania because there is a pay per view on Sunday. He got to talk about how he won’t have to deal with all of Nexus on Sunday and he will only have to deal with CM Punk. Cena talked about the host for Wrestlemania and then he joined in the ‘conspiracy theories’ about the host and mentioned hosts that would probably not help get people on the fence to buy the show. Cena turned his attention to the ‘Voice of WWE’ and he decided to try out for ‘Can you write a promo better than a fifth grader’. Cena also went into this territory when he was talking about how he had a ‘bad year’ because he was part of Nexus against his will and he was fired (even though he spent more time on WWE television when he was ‘fired’ than most of the active roster during that time).
The show ended with the announcement of the official host for Wrestlemania 27. After days of speculation we found out that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson would be the man who would be able to electrify tens of thousands of people in the Georgia Dome on April 3rd.
I will talk about the reaction that the Rock received later in this column because I want to focus on the promo that the Rock gave. If I was grading his promo on a 100 point scale, it would probably be a 97 and two of the points deducted were not even his fault. The promo did a great job of keeping the crowd hanging on his every word. Rock was able to convey in his promo that he was an icon of the WWE during its major runs in the last fifteen years and he conveyed how important Wrestlemania was by talking about how he was the only person important enough to host the biggest wrestling show of the year.
Rock also brought back many of his catchphrases and nicknames that were focal points of his promos and his gimmick through the years. The crowd knew what he was talking about because of his iconic status within the sport.
He also mixed a lot of humor into his promo and I liked the part where he was suggesting that Justin Bieber was going to host Mania only to say that he told Vince that Justin is okay, but only the Rock could host Wrestlemania.
Even though he wasn’t cutting a heel promo, he did what a good heel does in their promos. When he talked about The Miz, while it may have come off to some that he was burying Miz and his catchphrase, it came off to me that Rock was saying that Miz is trying to take his spot and that he wants to face him in the ring to show Miz who the icon really is.
I will talk about Rock’s handling of the General Manager and Michael Cole later in this column, but he was very direct with Cole and I thought if Cole did make a step towards the computer, we were going to see one of Rock’s shoes in Michael Cole’s ass.
Rock finished off his promo by talking about John Cena. I liked the way that he talked about the progression of the catchphrases for the top stars from Austin to Rock to John Cena and how they went from imposing to a game of peek-a-boo. This part was where the only weak point in the promo took place and it was when Rock made the ‘Barney’s anus’ comment. (However, when a three second part of a twenty minute promo is the only problem that you can find, it is a pretty darn good promo)
I also liked the part where he talked as ‘Dwayne’ since it has been so long since he has wrestled that he has moved on from ‘The Rock’ and more people probably know him from his movie roles. It also showed that even though he is not an active wrestler, he is still going to embrace his past and he is proud of what he was able to achieve. He also acknowledged that the wrestling fans were there for him when he retired and started acting and they are the reason he was able to have his movie career.
The Other Promos
After John Cena’s promo, CM Punk came out to stop him and respond to Cena’s comments. Punk had a good promo even though he praised Michael Cole. Punk tried to show that he did not need Nexus 2.0 to help him tonight against Cena because he was a good person (we would find out during the match how little help he would need from Nexus to win). He also won points for bringing up Back to the Future Part 2 with the Gray’s Sports Almanac line. Punk also pointed out that he has two wins over Cena in their last two matches and he made sure not to worry about talking about how he won the matches, just that he won.
The Bellas and Eve Torres argued in the back for some reason. Were the Bellas trying to date R Truth while Eve was his Fly Girl? This got Natalya and Gail Kim involved but none of the other heels were anywhere to be found to help Nikki and Brie.
Sheamus cut a promo after his attack on Mark Henry that I liked. He told the other five fellas in the Elimination Chamber match on Sunday that this is what they can look forward to. It made Sheamus look strong at that time (unfortunately, he had to wrestle later in the show).
After his match with Daniel Bryan, Miz cut a brief promo about his match with Jerry Lawler and mentioned the death of Lawler’s mom. At least they did not make that a major issue on the show to play up this match and only brings it up so it is not used as an excuse if Lawler should lose on Sunday. Without Lawler at the announce table to talk about the match for two hours, it was a good way to remind people that this is one of the three announced matches for the pay per view.
The Smackdown Contribution to this week’s Raw
The usual suspects from Smackdown made their way onto Raw this week.
First, we saw Alberto Del Rio remind us who he is and that he is going to win at Wrestlemania because it is his destiny. While his message has been the same for the last few weeks, he has shown us a new car every week. He has a strong delivery with his promos.
Out next was the World Champion Edge who right now is the man that Del Rio would be facing at Wrestlemania and Edge brought up the attack two weeks ago on Raw when Del Rio announced his opponent for Wrestlemania. This allowed Edge to try to get some revenge on Del Rio before Alberto fought back, but in the end, Edge got to spear Del Rio off the apron.
That led us into the final two Smackdown people of the night, Vickie Guerrero and Dolph Ziggler. Vickie got to explain what happened on Smackdown for those of you who didn’t see the show (and according to the ratings, not as many people watched last week). It turns out that since Vickie banned the spear and she saw Edge use it, he is no longer the World Champion. We then got our first glimpse of the new World Champion Dolph Ziggler. Vickie also got to tease that Edge would have more problems because Edge was the one to injure Teddy Long and Vickie has the proof.
The Raw General Messenger: There are some weeks where Michael Cole’s favorite piece of technology is not the focus of the show and there are times when there is a good segment that is moving along until you hear the ‘Least Electrifying Noise in Sports Entertainment’ to stop a segment in its tracks. There were two occasions when we were told about messages from whoever or whatever is running Raw. The first situation was done during a commercial break when the R Truth/John Morrison match was turned into a tag match against Michael McGillicutty and David Otunga. That one was innocuous and didn’t affect the flow of the show.
The second one was during the Rock’s promo and other than Edge’s attack of the computer this was the best reaction to the computer. When you have someone cutting the best promo since Shawn Michaels’ farewell last year after Wrestlemania and probably one of the best promos in the history of the ‘longest running episodic show on television today’, you don’t interrupt it with a show killer. If they were going to let the Rock drop the People’s Elbow, that would have been the perfect time to do it. Rock was not going to be upstaged by either Cole or the computer and the ‘It’s still real to me’ guy was probably being paraphrased by thousands of people for ‘doing what had to be done’.
The Matches
The opening match was another rematch between John Cena and CM Punk. I thought this match was okay and I was a little surprised that CM Punk got the win. I thought there were some good counters during this match and Cena even used the gutwrench suplex on Punk. Things were even throughout the match and then Punk got the win after he employed a little trickery by throwing the chair into the ring to get the referee to be preoccupied while Punk gets the wrench and hit Cena to win the match.
I did have an issue with the way that Punk won the match. Even though it helps that Punk got the win, he needed to use a foreign object to get the pin on Cena. What is supposed to happen when there isn’t an arm with a Nexus arm band on it coming out from under the ring to hand you weapons if you are CM Punk? With the two previous matches, I was hoping that they would hold off another match between Cena and Punk for a while.
I thought the Divas Title Match was okay for television. With two faces, was there really the need for a Lumberjill match? The face versus face dichotomy was different because they like to do face versus face so it was good to see a match of honor on Raw. With only seven women around the ring, why not bring in the Smackdown Divas for the match? It isn’t like Smackdown talent never goes on Raw.
I really liked the Miz and Daniel Bryan match and I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if I could have escaped the commentary during the match (I will discuss that later in the column). This match got a lot of time and Daniel Bryan got in a lot of offense and was in control for most of the match. The neck breaker that Miz hit on Bryan in the ropes looked good and with the way that Bryan landed made it look more devastating. The kicks that Bryan connected with reminded me of what he did to William Regal at the Royal Rumble and the fact that Miz was able to absorb that punishment and still get the win probably helped him in the eyes of some who might question his title run.
The tag match was okay for television, but unfortunately it did nothing to help Nexus’ standing as a dominant unit. McGillicutty looked okay in the match and showed that he is probably the second best wrestler of the members of Nexus who are not out with injury (Harris is equal to or slightly ahead of McGillicutty in my opinion). Otunga was in the match for a short period of time which was not a bad thing.
The Sheamus/Orton match started off good but it seemed to end as soon as some momentum was being developed. Sheamus dominated 80 percent of the match but Orton was able to hit the RKO after being superplexed. When Orton landed after the superplex, I thought he was going to go right into the RKO push ups and beat Sheamus. As I mentioned above, Sheamus’ promo rebuilt his character but this match brought him back to where he was before the show started.
After the match ended, we got the other four men in the Elimination Chamber match to come to the ring to deal with Nexus. Unfortunately, Sheamus was removed from the situation so he was a non factor. At the end, we saw John Cena and Randy Orton standing tall in the ring while Nexus is down on the floor.
While Rock draws them in, something else pushes them away
From reading comments from people and seeing what is said in the Unofficial PWInsider Chat Room, it appears that a lot of people are joining the crusade regarding the ‘Voice of WWE’. In other columns and on audios, I have commented on how I think Michael Cole hurts the overall product with his ‘heel/bromance with Miz’ character. The Miz/Daniel Bryan match should be treated like something important because it is the two singles champions on the Raw brand and as was pointed out, Daniel Bryan won his title from Miz last year. Michael Cole does nothing to help any of the superstars who are not associated with Miz, Vickie Guerrero, or Alberto Del Rio. He should have heeded his words from Smackdown when he said that there is no need to have someone dominate because that is what he does. While it can be justified because he is the play by play man, but if that is the case, let someone else do the play by play and have Cole watch tapes of Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, and even Don West in his brief heel run in TNA.
The goal of a television announcer is to fill in holes that we cannot see on the screen. Cole seems to want to be the center of attention, even when his secret valentine is in the ring in the best match of the night, he isn’t bringing up how it is a champion versus champion match. Guys like Heenan said things and made you want to watch next week to see what else he would say and what would happen to him. Cole makes me want to mute my television and not continue watching at times. On Raw and Smackdown, he has not reached the levels of ‘why am I watching’ that he achieved during season three of NXT.
Other Thoughts on Raw:
If Vickie Guerrero had walked out during The Rock’s promo, I wonder if there would have been a sonic boom with the way the crowd reacted to the Rock and the way that they react to Vickie’s presence on Raw.
I wonder if they are going to try to bring in Jonathan Coachman, Kevin Kelly, or Lillian Garcia for Wrestlemania to play off the Rock since they are three of his top foils.
I guess they are going to tease Miz versus John Cena with Rock as the guest referee.
I mentioned this on Facebook already, but I really want to see if the people in San Diego for the Smackdown tapings will start a ‘Fruity Pebbles’ chant for John Cena.
Was John Morrison going for the zombie look with the way he looked tonight?
I thought the way that they mentioned the passing of Jerry Lawler’s mother on the show was well done. They could have had Cole and Miz turn it into an angle, but instead they briefly mentioned it.
Since it has been a while since I have given my thoughts on a lumberjack/lumberjill match, I want to bring up one of Maria’s best promos during her time in WWE. When she was interviewing someone about a lumberjack match, she asked that person about the people around the ring dressed in black and red flannel and having to deal with people with axes on the floor. I miss those days.
I guess it is better to mark out at the announce table than to say that you are marking out at the announce table.
I wonder if Cole is angry that Hornswoggle took his box of chocolates for Miz and gave them to Ariel during the Khali Kiss Kam segment?
The Khali Kiss Kam segment was okay. It was a way to get some publicity for The Chaperone which opens this Friday without using Triple H. Ariel had a lot of enthusiasm and appeared to have fun during the segment. With the Kiss Kam, you knew that you were going to see something with Santino and Tamina, but I was a bit surprised that Ted and Maryse were shown but I was not surprised that Maryse wanted nothing to do with Ted. Yoshi got a double bonus for being on Raw and then being kissed by Maryse. The segment with Regal and Ryder was funny and Regal continues to show that he is a good sport.
If they were going to go with a ‘same sex’ Kiss Kam, where were Annie and Britta? They are part of the NBC/Universal synergy that everyone loves.
I was almost expecting them to show Miz and Riley or Cole and the computer during the Kiss Kam segment.
Can they finally break up Maryse and Ted or will we have to go to couples counseling with them? Maybe Michael Cole or Todd Grisham (since Maryse hits on Todd during NXT) can conduct it.
On my Smackdown audio last week, I made an analogy for Nexus and The Corre comparing them to Big Bang Theory and Community. This show solidified my Nexus is Big Bang Theory part of the equation. Punk cuts a promo at the start of the show and then beats Cena with help from Nexus (but we never saw who it was because Nexus was banned from helping). Then McGillicutty and Otunga lose a tag match with Mason Ryan at ringside to help them, but there is no Punk to be seen. Maybe they should change McGillicutty’s last name to ‘Wolowitz’.
I am so happy that I always record an extra fifteen minutes on my DVR for Raw ‘just in case’. Welcome to that case.
What to watch if you haven’t seen the show yet: I would highly recommend the Miz/Bryan match (but with the sound off) and the Rock’s promo.
