PWInsiderXTRA - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR THE 4/16/12 RAW

RAW - 16/04/2012
What this Raw needs to accomplish?
•Extreme Rules hype. The WWE title match must be announced on this show as you don’t want to announce that one on the go home show. Hopefully another match or two is named as well
•Brock Lesnar-John Cena. This is a Wrestlemania calibre match and WWE just threw it out there last week pretty flimsily. They need to effectively push this match this week and it will be interesting to see how they do it without Brock on the show
•Miz follow up. Miz got the win at Wrestlemania and is supposedly in tight with Laurinaitis so hopefully we get some follow up on his storyline
•Massive reduction in the bad comedy. Vince McMahon needs to stop thinking this is a variety show that appeals to everyone. We don’t need terrible comedy especially on the same show with a guy like Brock Lesnar front and center
•Lord Tensai. We need a new chapter for this character and quickly
•Punk and Jericho. I thought the storyline was slightly derailed last week as there is too much talking and focus on characters we don’t know. Hopefully with these two involved they recognize it and get things back on track this week
•Foresight. I don’t need to see guys who have potential to be the next big thing being jobbed out without a second thought. This includes guys like Dolph Ziggler, Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan and Zack Ryder, although I don’t hold out much hope for Ryder
Show Breakdown

1. Wow what a reaction Punk got coming out in London! This crowd is hot! I like that they are starting the show with a match and not a standard promo segment.

2. Mark Henry looks like an absolute beast. I hope he gets another title run this year. The best character WWE has created in quite some time.

3. I love when crowds chant sexual chocolate.

4. Punk did the dive to the outside and I thought they were headed for a commercial so I started fast forwarding. It’s just what I’m used to, but I like the change of pace!

5. This might be one of the better matches I’ve seen Mark Henry have and he lost nothing in losing the way he did with the chair off the top rope from Punk. The crowd was great for this match and is a pleasant change of pace after last week’s DC debacle.

6. It feels like we haven’t seen Chris Jericho wrestle on free television in a while and I like that. Make the viewer pay to see Jericho in the ring.

7. Punk vs Jericho announced! I like that, not sure I care for the way they went about doing it with Jericho announcing it on the tron.

8. Love the touch of Jericho just leaving the screen and not getting into a back and forth on the microphone, which comes off contrived alot especially when one guy is in the ring and the other is on the screen.

9. Chris Jericho “Are you drunk right now, huh?”...that line amused me for some reason.

10. Amusing “fish and chips” chant!

11. How many times do we have to see Santino vs David Otunga? This feels like the repetitive Dolph vs Kofi matches we were getting last year or the year before except with two worse wrestlers.  I still love Otunga just not in the ring against Santino.

12. Truth should ask for his release if they are going to keep giving him garbage like this. My god...

13. Santino beating Otunga doesn’t do anything for Santino who is a solidified comedy character; it just hurts the great David Otunga.

14. I did not like this promo from Lord Tensai. This is the type of stuff we get when you have writers. They want to write verbiage, but it’s not verbiage anyone would say. I don’t approve.

15. Good on WWE for breaking records with Wrestlemania if the number holds up! I predicted it would underwhelm coming in below a million buys and it looks like I was way off...way off!

16. Brock video package...wow. Extreme Rules sold!

17. Love the replay of the Kane-Orton angle from last week. That might have been the only redeeming part of last week’s Smackdown!

18. The dismantling of Zack Ryder is just sad. I wasn’t the biggest fan, but the man got himself over and is now paying for it. Don’t cross Steph and her sixteen writers!

19. Amusing backstage segment with Bryan-AJ and Kofi. Kofi should have slapped Bryan though.

20. Very solid promo from Cena. I’m not sure why he’s still taking shots at Rock unless it’s going somewhere, which perhaps it is, but it’s not going to do anything to help him get over to continue taking shots at a guy who beat him. I like that Cena said he was intimidated; it gave a whole different dynamic to a Cena hard sell promo.

21. I’m not sure I like the aspect of the Cena-Lesnar storyline that has Cena also feuding with John Laurinaitis. I’m tired of the evil GM feuding with top babyface storyline.

22. Wow just when I thought the Truth stuff couldn’t get any worse, they insert Hornswoggle.

23. Good little match with Bryan and Kofi. The Yes chants are something else.

24. It’s interesting that on the one hand WWE seems to be embracing the “Yes” chants, but then they have Lawler calling England the new “Bizzaro Land”.

25. I’m assuming in this Vickie-Brodus feud that will eventually be getting some sort of dance off perhaps involving Swagger and Ziggler as well. Could be entertaining...

26. Why does Laurinaitis want Otunga coming to a one on one with him and Eve? I guess he needs a witness to avoid sexual harassment suits...

27. Nice tribute package to Jay Strongbow.

28. Didn’t even watch what was hopefully the last attempt at comedy with R-Truth.

29. Wow this Big Show and Khali squashing the tag champs thing was one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in a while, but I’m not surprised.

30. Cool little package on WWE’s first trip to Moscow.

31. I like the continued hype for next week’s contract signing, although next week being a three hour show hasn’t been emphasized as much as it could be.

32. I like that Cole is asking the question can Cena recover from losing to The Rock and that Cena had called it a must win. It’s good to see WWE sticking to some storyline continuity.

33. Interesting finish to the Tensai-Cena match. I’m not sure what it means. Tensai needed a win like this, but he still bores me. I need him to pick up the pace on his ring work.