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Overall, I thought this was a good show with a great promo for the Undertaker/Triple H match with a surprise guest to give his thoughts and a good promo from John Cena. However, there were a few segments that did not seem to have the ‘Wrestlemania is on Sunday’ feel. I was talking to someone after the show and he said that the show moved very fast. I agreed with him 100% because I was shocked when I looked at the clock to update the time on my report on the main site and it was already 9:45 when it did not feel like 45 minutes. There were few segments on this week’s show that dragged and the pacing of the promos was very fast.
Here are my thoughts on the show.
If you are going to be in Chicago and get a good reaction from the crowd and are going to hold the Rock until the end of the night, what better way than to use CM Punk in his home town. The image of Punk sitting in the center of the ring with a simple spotlight on him reminded me of Batista’s heel turn. Punk has gone back into the ‘I don’t care about anyone else’ mindset that he had when he was in charge of the Straight Edge Society. I liked how Punk tried to turn the Chicago crowd that cheered for him by saying that he doesn’t care if Orton goes through the crowd and kicks everyone in the head.
One thing that CM Punk has been able to do since the creation of the Straight Edge Society is his ability to exert a cultish control over people. This continued into the Newxus and I liked how he said that he could get anyone to get his coffee if he wanted some.
When Randy Orton came to the ring to confront Punk, were people wondering why Orton was so deliberate coming to the ring when Punk tormented his wife last week. We found out why Orton did not run to the ring. I thought the brawl, while short, was good. Orton appeared to be in control of the situation, but when he set up for the kick to the head, his knee buckled and Punk took advantage of the situation and gave Orton the Go To Sleep. I thought the knee giving out was a good touch, but why did it go out at such an opportune situation?
If we go by the usual wrestling formula that the person who has the upper hand on the final show before a pay per view match is going to lose the match at the pay per view, it would appear that Randy Orton is going to win.
Speaking of seeing Orton going off by kicking everyone in the arena, it got me thinking of the old MadTV sketch with Will Sasso playing Steven Seagal talking about ‘Steven Seagal Letterbox 2000’ where they show more of the screen than a typical letterbox movie and he goes around breaking everyone’s necks.
So Edge and Del Rio can ‘make physical contact’ on Raw while not on Smackdown? What about Superstars or NXT? Can they have physical contact outside of the arena? Does this mean that a computer is more powerful than Teddy Long? Why is it that when Raw wrestlers go to Smackdown, they are not given restrictions but when a Smackdown wrestler goes to Raw, any limitations are removed?
They make a big deal about how Edge and Del Rio can make contact and still be allowed to attend Wrestlemania and then during the course of the tag match involving both people, they only make contact once when Del Rio tripped Edge when he set up for the first spear on Clay.
It is good to see Edge and Christian together, but unfortunately, when they are in a tag match on the final Raw before Wrestlemania, there is a good chance that you are going to spend more time reading this sentence than the match will last.
They have done a good job building Brodus Clay since he debuted on Raw and Smackdown. With the exception of Wade Barrett, it seems like it is better to lose NXT if you want to have a career in the WWE.
I thought Del Rio coming from behind to attack Edge did a good job of showing that Edge has to be careful at all times because of what Del Rio can do. Then Del Rio did a good thing by removing the elbow pad to make the cross arm breaker more damaging on Edge to weaken him for the match at Wrestlemania.
We got to see another good Sin Cara video package.
I was a bit surprised that they waited this long for Cole to have access to the e-mails from the general manager. Didn’t Cole say that he could get e-mails on his Blackberry? Is Cole trying to curry favor with both sides by having an iPad? Who will win Cole’s affections: RIM or Apple?
I liked the idea of Lawler having a match to determine if he was physically ready for the match at Wrestlemania, but it seems strange that they would want to make sure that Lawler is okay when we have Edge with an injured arm and Randy Orton with an injured knee.
Other than setting up the eight man tag match at Wrestlemania, I did not see a purpose for the Marella/Gabriel match. While there was a lot of interference in the match, why have one of the tag champions get pinned by Santino. Will this lead to something happening on Smackdown on Friday or before their match on Sunday? If we go by the ‘win a match on the show before a pay per view, lose at the pay per view’ rule then The Corre gets the win on Sunday.
With the post-match celebration, I was hoping that Kane would have seen everyone doing the ‘Santino Trombone Celebration’ and just scoff at them wondering what he got himself into. However, if they are going to turn Kane face, it makes sense.
I thought the best part of the show was the segment with Undertaker, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels. They have done a good job building this match through promos and video packages, but this was a great conclusion to the build.
I can’t remember anyone preventing Triple H from doing the GameFountain and I thought the way they did it with Undertaker’s gong sounding was perfect.
I was talking with some people over the weekend and we were talking about whether or not they would have Shawn Michaels appear on Raw. I had thought of two ways for WWE to use him. One way would have been to have Shawn in the back talking to both men after their segment in the ring and have him tell each that he thinks they will win at Wrestlemania and talk about how much he is looking forward to the match. The other way would have been to have Shawn interrupt the in ring segment.
I thought Shawn did a great job with his portion of the promo by putting over Undertaker’s accomplishments while focusing on Hunter’s accomplishments as well as his friendship so you would expect Shawn to say that he thinks that Hunter is going to win. I thought by starting off his question about winning the match on Sunday looking at Undertaker, only to have the question for Hunter was a great touch. It may have caught some people off guard that he didn’t think that Hunter would be able to win despite talking about how Hunter does not have the same compassion that Shawn may have shown over the last two years.
I liked how Hunter brought up his career in WWE and how he always respected the Undertaker for what he stood for in the locker room. Then he talked about all of the times that Undertaker was not at 100% but he continued to do what was best for WWE. While it might have ‘humanized’ the Undertaker character too much, it was a good description for fans who might not know how important Taker is to WWE. It also reinforced Hunter’s image as a warrior who will also do what is best for WWE.
I also liked how Hunter talked about how he doesn’t want to be known as someone who hung around too long and damaged his legacy with the part about his discussion with Shawn about ‘taking the other one out’ if it got to that point. Then Hunter turned things to Taker telling him that is why he is going after him.
I thought that they did a good job of giving Undertaker a shorter promo because of the length of Hunter’s promo and because Taker is more a man who is defined by his actions and not his words. However, he did a great job of getting into Hunter’s head by talking about how Shawn Michaels changed after facing him twice at Wrestlemania. I liked how the camera focused on Shawn when Taker talked about how close Shawn got to winning.
One of the things that a lot of the veterans are able to do better than the younger wrestlers is react to promos in a way that makes them more effective. Seeing a vacant look or doubt on Shawn’s face made what Undertaker had to say more effective.
While Shawn had no problem giving Alberto Del Rio a super kick a few months ago, the words that Taker said about him got to him and it made him fail in his attempt to super kick the Undertaker. Then Taker tries for a choke slam but Hunter gets in the way so Shawn can get away.
Then they finish off the segment with Shawn not sure if Hunter is going to win on Sunday and then once he leaves the ring, he tells Hunter that he can’t win. Then you have Taker add an extra touch by tipping his hat and smirking at Hunter before leaving the ring.
The way that they built the hype for this match, I like that Hunter and Taker did not make contact leading to Sunday’s match. It makes you want to see who gets in the first shot on Sunday.
I liked the way they booked the Lawler/Swagger match. After Swagger sent Lawler into the announcer pit, Jerry had every right to go after Swagger with any weapon he could find. It did not matter if Lawler won the match or not, but by attacking Swagger with the chair, it makes it possible that one distraction for Lawler is gone on Sunday. I also liked how Jerry saw Cole outside his box and then Cole realized what was going on and he scurried into his protective chamber even though Lawler doing anything would negate the match on Sunday.
The crowd reactions for Vickie Guerrero in a live situation are insane. She garners so much heat that it seems unnatural. In a thirty second promo, she has the crowd booing her the entire time. I would say that she is the number two heel in terms of the fan’s reaction, just behind The Miz.
The tag match was a okay and was more a way to build interest in two matches at Wrestlemania. I thought Sheamus looked strong in the match while the others were not helped by the match. I thought Sheamus won the match too easily. However, if you go by the theory I have mentioned above a few times, it looks like Daniel Bryan is going to regain his United States Title.
I thought the weakest segment of the night was the Snooki/Trish Stratus/LayCool bar segment.
The Triple H/Shawn Michaels/Undertaker set a high bar for Rock/Miz/John Cena to attain and I think it fell short of the segment at the start of hour two. It was a good segment that was helped by the performance of John Cena. I thought Miz’s comments were too short to help things and in the end, he was not helped by what happened. I thought Rock’s promo was okay but paled in comparison to what Cena said.
Rock did a good job of talking about his Team Bring It motto and it came off as a counter to ‘Hustle, Loyalty, Respect’. The focus of Rock’s promo seemed to be another chance to ridicule John Cena since it was going to get over with the crowd. Rock’s comments about his ‘dream’ would have worked better if he was facing Cena at Wrestlemania.
While Cena said that his rap response to the Rock a few weeks ago was a knockout, I thought this one was Tyson-esque. Cena did a great job of pointing out that he had some criticisms of the Rock not appearing in the ring and now he is in the ring. Cena also pointed out that he was someone who believed what the Rock would say in his promos. He pointed out that he wanted answers for why Rock was not coming back to WWE, even if it was just for a one time appearance. Cena also put over how important the Rock’s promos are because he was proud to be mentioned by the Rock.
Then John Cena got to the meat of his promo where he wanted to know what the specific problems were that Rock had with him. When Cena pointed out the issues that Rock had with him, but Cena felt that they were positive things that he has a strong fan base among children. He then turns it into a situation where he wants to know if Rock has any issues with the effort that Cena gives in and out of the ring. Cena then finished Rock off by saying that if being a fan of the Rock’s means that you act the way that Rock does, he doesn’t want to be a part of it. Cena then told Rock that it does not matter how Rock judges him because there is someone more important who judges his actions.
I think this part of the segment would have been better if Rock and Cena were going to be wrestling. Unfortunately, the match on Sunday is John Cena versus The Miz and at this point of the segment, there was no mention of THE WWE CHAMPION.
We finally saw the Miz come out and he reminded us that there is a title match on Sunday. Miz then turned the focus to The Rock and pointed out that Rock is a movie star more than he is a wrestler so he is not going to risk his billion dollar box office to get involved on the show.
Then Rock showed Miz that he was a liar because Rock did get involved after Alex Riley threw the first punch. Before we move on, if anyone is going to get involved with a physical altercation, why is it Alex Riley?
I did not think the brawl helped Miz at all. He was unable to take care of a guy who had not wrestled in seven years with the help of his ‘side kick’. Then Rock is able to take care of the WWE Champion with punches and a DDT before he hits the People’s Elbow with Miz on the mat for too long without moving. Then after Rock has the upper hand on Miz, John Cena comes in and hits the Attitude Adjustment on Rock.
If you go by the transitive theory, since Rock took care of Miz and John Cena took care of Rock on Monday night, then John Cena will take care of Miz on Sunday.
What to watch on DVR or other media format: CM Punk’s promo, Triple H/Shawn Michaels/Undertaker, and John Cena’s promo at the end.
