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This was another show that focused on building the card for Wrestlemania with an emphasis on promos over in ring action. While the top matches don’t really need a lot of wrestling to add to the hype of the biggest show of the year, it might be nice to see some more wrestling to establish the undercard for Wrestlemania. The matches that have already been announced received differing levels of hype which worked. We also got a new match added to the pay per view with some mainstream publicity.
In addition to the build for Wrestlemania, we got to see what would happen when two careers were put on the line this week. In what could be considered a major upset, both of the people who were facing the end of their WWE careers are going to be on next week’s Raw. We also saw a title change (and potentially the establishment of another match for Wrestlemania [if you are reading this in Stamford, please make it so . . . fella]).
Here are my thoughts on this week’s show:
The show started off with the Rock’s response to John Cena and I was not completely impressed with the promo. Rock used a child to play the part of ‘John Cena’ as he talked to the child since he could not go face to face with Cena. I said on Friday during the Smackdown post game show that it seems like the Rock is given a pass on some things because he is the Rock, but if we saw someone like John Cena cutting the same exact promo, he would be criticized. I think this was a perfect example of the Rock getting a pass. Cena was right that Rock has not been in the building for his promos since he returned in Anaheim. However, this is not a situation where Rock and Cena should be in the same building because once they have that face to face confrontation, it diminishes what will happen when they meet at Wrestlemania.
While the overall promo was not as strong as it could be, I thought his comments to the Miz were the strongest part of the promo because he took it seriously instead of treating it like a joke as he is doing with John Cena. It reflects the way that Miz has been conducting himself over the last few weeks. Miz has something to prove and it comes off to me that Rock respects Miz for ‘acting like a man’.
Even thought Rock is not officially involved with the match in any way, Miz still feels like the third wheel in this match.
I thought it was a good idea to keep Cole isolated from Lawler, but wouldn’t it have made more sense if they had the computer inside the Cole Compound, even though the eventual face to face confrontation between Cole and Lawler was good.
Miz cut another strong promo to respond to The Rock. Since the start of the year, I think Miz is the top promo guy in the company and he has really grown into his role. I liked that he took shot at the Rock since the Rock addressed him at the start of the show. Miz is doing a good job of saying that he is better than Rock’s family who are Hall of Famers because they never held the WWE Title (or its equivalent when they were in WWF or WWWF). He also one upped the Rock by saying that while Rock may be ‘verbally defeating’ John Cena, Miz has been able to physically beat him up over the last few weeks.
There have been a number of times when there was a very good promo segment but then out of the corner of your ear, you hear that sound coming from the Raw General Manager. I thought it hurt tonight because Miz’s promo was so strong. I don’t know if it would matter so much if it was someone other than Cole reading the e-mails, but it hurts the flow of the show.
The announcement led to the first match of the night and the first of two ‘First Time Ever’ Matches. Miz and Great Khali had a short match that gave us the return of Alex Riley to lead to the disqualification. Then Miz did his best to recreate the I Quit Match between Rock and Mick Foley at the 1999 Royal Rumble with the repeated chair shots. At least it was to the back instead of the head. We saw Khali bleed from the back and that made the attack seem even more despicable than it was. I wonder if the Rock will respond to this in his next promo. I also liked the DDT to Khali because it is another move that works on the neck and head, like the Skull Crushing Finale.
Seeing John Morrison backstage with Snooki should have said two things about this week’s show. First, John Morrison made it on television. Second, that he was probably going to get involved in an angle with Snooki later in the show.
I liked the interaction in the back with Snooki and Vickie Guerrero. Vickie continues to tell any woman who comes into WWE that they better stay away from her man. I also liked the talk about how Vickie was supposed to be on the cover of Playboy and the response from Snooki was also good.
I thought the Sheamus versus Daniel Bryan match was the best match on this week’s show. While it was not as long as I wanted it to be, the fact that Sheamus won the title and was still in the company means that there will probably be a rematch, hopefully at Wrestlemania. In addition to liking the match, I liked how Sheamus tried to quiet Justin Roberts when he mentioned the quitting stipulation that Sheamus announced last week, hoping that we might have forgotten about it.
I was not shocked that Daniel Bryan lost the title this week because the title was an afterthought the way that he was booked. I also liked that you had two different styles in the match. While Daniel Bryan was trying to work submissions and getting near falls, Sheamus tried to pound Bryan down to the point where he could get the win. I thought Bryan became too dependent on using the top rope, almost morphing into Christian and that ended up costing him with what might be my third favorite finish on WWE Television with the pump kick as Bryan came off the top turnbuckle (behind the Shawn Michaels Sweet Chin Music to Shelton Benjamin as he tried a springboard move and Randy Orton giving Evan Bourne an RKO while Bourne tried a Shooting Star Press).
I also liked Sheamus faking the ankle injury when he was sent to the floor because that was the finish to the match last week. It is something that has not been used in a while so it was possible that he could have been injured.
Since Sheamus had such a run of bad luck, I liked his post match celebration.
As I mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, now I want to see Sheamus and Bryan have their rematch at Wrestlemania with them getting fifteen to twenty minutes. This could be a good ‘Hour One Main Event’.
As I have mentioned before, I don’t know if the play by play where Michael Cole makes you want to turn off your television over the last few months is the reason, but I am not fully sold on the Cole character right now.
In the Unofficial PWInsider.com chat room (no affiliation with PWInsider but a few board members go there), some people were hoping that Honky Tonk Man or Jimmy Hart would have been Cole’s ‘guest from Lawler’s past’ while some other people were thinking that they should get Bill Dundee or Doug Gilbert. Instead we got Brian Christopher who made sense since he was in the WWE. However, he looked like a mix of Dusty Rhodes, Rikishi, and Chris Candido.
It might not have been a good idea to have him dance on his way to the ring because Brian sounded blown up while cutting his promo on his dad.
I thought the interaction between Christopher and Lawler was good with Christopher talking about how Lawler wasn’t a good dad and how he wasn’t there for him as well as Jerry’s response that he was embarrassed by Christopher and that was why he was glad he never used the Lawler name in WWE.
I thought having Jim Ross at the show was a good surprise. He had a good back and forth with Cole, especially with Jim Ross trying to debunk the ‘Voice of WWE’ comments that Cole always makes. I was hoping that Ross would have said that if that was true, he was hoping the ‘voice’ would get laryngitis.
As soon as the Ross/Cole stare down turned into what would appear to be a brawl, I was starting my ‘Jack Swagger run in’ Countdown Clock. When he came to the ring, I was hoping that Swagger would think about what he was going to do to a fellow Sooner. Then after thinking about it, he tells JR ‘I Love You . . . I’m Sorry’ and then attack him.
It made sense for Lawler to come to the ring to help his friend and then get laid out by Swagger.
With the way that Jim Ross was attacked this week, if he is going to announce the Lawler/Cole match at Wrestlemania, do you think he would do the right thing and announce the match the way we know that JR would or would he ‘pull a Cole’ and go into business for himself during the match?
I was surprised that they showed Randy Orton’s wife and child in the crowd. She definitely changed from the last time that we saw ‘her’ on television. I was hoping that Cole or Mathews would have mentioned that. Since they were shown in the crowd, I was expecting to see them become part of the angle involving Orton and Punk, but maybe it was a good thing to avoid the obvious.
The Ryan/Orton match was okay for television and had the result that you would have expected. I was surprised that Ryan got in so much offense on Orton. For some reason, Ryan looked at the Wrestlemania sign because he might be at ringside at Mania, and that delay (as well as the fact that he was standing right behind Randy Orton whose finisher is applied when Ryan is standing where he was) cost Ryan the match and CM Punk his final Nexus member.
I liked the post match field goal kick because it was different than the other ones. Instead of staying in the ring the entire time, Orton teased confronting Punk on the stage and then he ran into the ring and kicked Ryan while Punk was running to the ring. This was the first time that Punk seemed like he wanted to protect one of the members of Nexus. I thought the stare down with Punk and Orton was well done with Punk getting down to Orton’s level while he does his ‘push ups’.
Since Husky Harris was ‘eliminated’ from the mix before this challenge was set up, does that mean that we will see him on Raw in one of the next two weeks with Punk reminding everyone that there is another?
I think Drew Carey is an interesting Celebrity addition to the Hall of Fame. If this is a way to get Bob Barker on the show, it is a good connection between ‘old school’ and ‘new school’ for game show hosts and maybe Bob will pass the torch to Drew. It also involves a person who was a part of the Royal Rumble.
The Snooki/Zack Ryder segment in the back made sense since Ryder is doing a variation of that gimmick with a Long Island flair instead of Jersey touch.
I wonder who would win a match if it was Robbie E and Cookie versus Snooki and Zack Ryder. Would the time space continuum be affected by this match?
I thought the Snooki segment was good. She did a better job than most of the guest hosts because she got everyone’s names right and did not get the names of any shows wrong. I have never watched an episode of Jersey Shore and my only exposure to that show is through clips on The Soup or its variations, but if WWE can get 1% of Jersey Shore’s audience to buy the PPV, that is another fifty to sixty thousand buys.
I also liked Vickie Guerrero’s promo before her match with Trish Stratus because it built on what was said in the back earlier in the show with the Rolling Stone cover. The shot of Vickie in the same pose as Snooki was funny.
The Vickie/Trish match was what I expected and since it was a No Disqualification Match, you knew that something had to happen in order for Vickie to get the win. I was glad that Vickie got the win and also got Dolph Ziggler and John Morrison involved in the match. It also got Smackdown stars LayCool onto Raw.
The shoe throwing spot gave me some flashbacks to the days of Three Live Shoe in TNA when Konnan threw his shoes during matches.
I liked the way that they set up the mixed tag match with the post match activities. I thought Snooki did a good job interjecting herself by pulling Michelle off the apron and then hitting the Thesz Press. Trish then came back to the ring to deal with Michelle. It was also a good way to get Ziggler and Morrison on the pay per view because they definitely belong on the show based on what they have done in the last six to eight months.
I know that some people have pointed out that it could be unfair that Snooki is taking a spot from someone on Wrestlemania, but since Trish Stratus is not on the active roster and is a trainer for Tough Enough, isn’t she also taking a spot from someone on the roster as well?
I think we can say that Snooki is the best in ring performer of the Jersey Shore women.
The Sin Cara videos continue to be well produced and make you want to see his debut.
Another good video feature that we are seeing from WWE is the Shawn Michaels ‘At Home’ videos talking about the Undertaker/Triple H match at Wrestlemania. This week he talked about the Undertaker and I liked how he talked about how the concept of the streak is just as imposing to the opponent as facing the Undertaker in the match.
I thought the main event between Alberto Del Rio and John Cena was okay for a television match. There shouldn’t have been a clean finish in this match because a Del Rio loss would hurt him.
When Cole said that the Rock was in the building, you had a feeling that it was going to be a ruse. The camera angle that they used to show the entrance when the Rock’s music played was well done because Miz did look a little like the Rock when he first came out.
When Del Rio, Miz, and Clay hit their sequence of moves (Rock Bottom, Running Enzuigiri, and Fallaway Slam), I was waiting for the Corre to come out and claim gimmick infringement or have Justin Gabriel hit a 450 Splash.
I really liked the beat down by the Miz after the match, but I am worried that it is going to mean that since he has had the advantage in the build to Mania that Cena will get the win. I don’t know if Cena should have gotten in as much offense as he did, but I liked how Miz took it from the ringside area to the stage. Miz showed no mercy for Cena and I liked the use of the WWE logo on the stage. I did not know that the logo spun.
I was also surprised that there was a commercial break at 11:05 because I think that is the latest that we have had a commercial break on Raw since that was the scheduled time for the show to end.
What to watch: Rock and Miz promos at the start of the show; Bryan/Sheamus; JR/Cole/Lawler; Snookie/Vickie segments; Post Match activities for Vickie/Trish; post match stuff after Del Rio/Cena.
