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Here are my thoughts on the show:
The show started off with probably the best news of the evening: Jim Ross was doing play by play.
Since the Triple H/Undertaker match was the match that got the most hype in the final weeks before Wrestlemania, it made sense that Triple H would open the show. I guess if Miz started off the show, the crowd would expect the Rock to get involved and we weren’t going to see him until 11:00.
I thought Hunter did a good job of conveying how no matter what you have done in wrestling, you are going to be in awe of the aura of the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. He also did a great job of talking about how much Taker was willing to sacrifice physically to make sure that he won the match. Then Hunter talked about how regardless of how Taker looked after the match, he will come back and he wants to be in the ring with him. With Hunter showing the spoils of war with his bruises, it showed how neither man came out of the match unscathed and reinforced what he said about how the match would change both men forever.
I was at Wrestlemania 24 and I experienced the Undertaker entrance on the grandest scale of them all and while I am not the biggest Undertaker fan, it was surreal to watch.
Then after Hunter’s promo, we got Jim Ross mentioning that he never saw Undertaker carted off so it makes the physical impact of the match more important.
I thought the conversation between Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler about Jerry’s Wrestlemania debut was good. It sounded like two friends talking about what they did over the weekend but it happens to be in front of cameras.
Michael Cole in his orange ring gear looked like a person who lost a lot of weight but still wants to wear the clothes they wore before they lost the weight.
Cole can definitely be considered a person who is a legend in their own mind.
Cole cutting promos like this on people like Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross is like watching Screech trying to intimidate Slater or Zack.
The Swagger/Lawler match was okay and was a better wrestling match than last week because we didn’t have Lawler trying to injure Swagger with a chair. There was some decent action until Cole got on the apron and distracted Lawler enough to allow Swagger to apply the ankle lock.
The post match stuff with Michael Cole and Jim Ross was not very good for a few reasons. First, it got Jim Ross off commentary and with the past however long I can remember, commentary has not been at the same level that Jim Ross (or Art Ross) brings. Next, is this leading to a match between JR and Cole?
I really liked the Cody Rhodes and CM Punk versus Randy Orton and Rey Mysterio Match. We had Rey facing his opponents from the last two Wrestlemanias along with a match up combining two matches from Sunday. It would have been nice to hear the announcers talk about the history between Rhodes and Orton since they were both in Legacy. I was also surprised that this match had two commercial breaks but most matches on Raw in the last two months haven’t been long enough to need a commercial. Cody and Punk worked well together in the match. There was a good sequence where we saw Orton and Punk escape the other’s finisher and try counters. I also liked the finish to the match with Rey hitting the 619 on Cody and then Cody stumbling around to allow Orton to give him the RKO to win the match.
This was the seventh longest Raw match of 2011, the longest one since February 28th and the second longest match since the end of January.
I thought the Triple H/Steve Austin stare down in the back was good. I don’t think we will see a match between the two, but it gave Austin the chance to tell Hunter about the match at Mania.
Up to this point, the show was moving along at what appeared to be a very quick pace. Then it hit a series of speed bumps called the Tough Enough Reveal. I thought this segment was the weakest part of the show and did not give me the greatest feeling going into Tough Enough (you can read my report and thoughts on the main page). As I mentioned in my Raw Report, I really wish Austin had the cement mixer with him to fill the Whine Cellar.
I thought Miz was a good person to have come out to confront the people in Tough Enough because he is a product of that concept and he main evented Wrestlemania 27. I thought Miz’s line calling Eric Watts ‘Buckwheat’ when he entered the ring was funny.
I guess the pattern is that Miz will come out and confront a legend, then Riley takes the first shot at the legend. Miz and Riley control things until the legend remembers who he is and then Riley takes that person’s finisher.
The whole segment was not a problem, I liked Austin’s promo about Tough Enough and the Miz’s interaction with Austin.
I wonder if the Steveweiser Shower by Austin was the first shower that Cole took since Mania because he was still wearing his Syracuse Orange mascot costume again.
With the third match of the night, can we just get rid of the brand split and have wrestlers go between shows without making it a special occasion. Alberto Del Rio has almost wrestled in as many matches on Raw as he has on Smackdown so let’s get rid of this brand illusion.
The Del Rio/Bourne match was okay, but I expected to see a more vicious Del Rio after his loss on Sunday night.
I thought Vickie and Dolph’s promo about how Dolph didn’t lose at Wrestlemania was okay. It set up Dolph and Morrison to be involved in a match on Raw when they did almost nothing on Sunday.
It was smart to get Trish on the show in the second hour to give the people a reminder that Tough Enough was on after Raw. You had Austin earlier and Booker on commentary for the last three-quarters of the show.
The match with Morrison and Trish versus Dolph and Vickie was okay, but nothing special.
I was as happy as possible that they were going to give us the Daniel Bryan/Sheamus match on this week’s Raw because they got time crunched out of their Wrestlemania match. Then I saw the match and I was disappointed. While I was not expecting a fifteen minute match, I was hoping that they would have given us an eight to ten minute match that would be equal to their talent. Instead we got another virtual squash by Sheamus. Bryan got in some offense, but it wasn’t enough to make it seem like he was going to win.
Then after the match, Daniel Bryan fell into virtual obscurity because of Sin Cara’s debut.
I thought Sin Cara had a good debut, even if it was very brief. The leap into the ring looked awesome (even though I was worried he was going to clip the ropes and crash and burn. He looked very smooth in the ring when he was attacking Sheamus. The double jump cross body was very impressive. A good debut and now we have a strong Hispanic wrestler who is supposed to be on Raw.
The Rock/Cena promo at the end of the show was okay. I thought Cena was middle of the road with his promo. He threw in a few of the ‘expected’ Cena quips but he did a good job putting over Miz’s win and how hard it is to go into Wrestlemania as the champion and leave as the champion. The he put over Miz confronting Steve Austin earlier in the show. I thought Cena was okay talking about Rock without mentioning him by name.
I thought Rock’s promo was okay and better than anything he did at Wrestlemania. I thought it was funny that most of the people booed Rock when he said that he respected Cena. Rock used the classic heel promo blueprint by talking about how much Cena has done since he came to the WWE.
Rock did a good job pointing out that while they might be different in terms of their interests, they both want to succeed.
I thought Rock tried for a ‘quick one’ by making the Baby Gap reference, but Cena came back with a Tooth Fairy comment that was very good.
Rock’s comparison to top people from different generations in sports was a good set up for the challenge at Wrestlemania 28. Since I have been talking about it for a few weeks, I really like the way the match was set up. I almost wanted to see Cena refuse the match at first so they can tease it a little more and then have Cena be forced into it.
What was Corre thinking trying to attack John Cena and The Rock. Don’t they know that they are only effective when they are on Smackdown or at Axxess. I thought the ‘can you top this’ challenge was pretty good.
What to watch on DVR: Triple H promo; Miz/Austin confrontation; Rock/Cena promos; Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton versus CM Punk and Cody Rhodes.
