Raw opens up tonight with a rare appearance from the Hardcore Legend, Mick Foley! Foley talks a little bit about nostalgia and his career and then says that he wants to be in the 2012 Royal Rumble. Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero come out and Ziggler cuts a promo on Foley being pathetic. This was by far some of Ziggler’s best mic work to date. He was the intense and charismatic heel that he needs to be to generate heat from the crowd. CM Punk comes down and cuts some great mic work himself on Ziggler and also puts over Foley. As things heat up, John Laurinaitis comes out and tells Mick Foley he will not be entering the 2012 Royal Rumble.
^This was a refreshing open to Monday Night Raw with great promos from two guys other than Cena and Kane. I don’t know about you, but the Cena/Kane promos are starting to repeat themselves. CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler showed exactly why they are competing in the WWE Title match at the Royal Rumble. Outside of the fact that they are two of the top five most talented wrestlers on WWE’s roster, they have amazing back and forth mic chemistry. Laurinaitis still stumbled over his words(nothing unusual about that). Vickie’s laugh is atrocious. I can’t hit the mute button quick enough on my remote when she lifts the microphone to speak.
Epico and Primo won the tag team titles from Air Boom at a live event, and are defending their newly won titles against the former champions. Epico and Primo work well together throughout the match and stop Bourne from hitting a shooting star press. Epico is able to hit the backstabber on Evan Bourne to get the pinfall and retain the titles.
^There was some really good tag team wrestling in this match, and it’s really sad to find out that Evan Bourne has failed his second wellness test and is now facing a 60 day suspension from WWE. I’m disappointed; Evan Bourne is one of those guys that I wanted to see prove everybody wrong when it came to his size and be a top WWE Superstar. Unfortunately, the guy just doesn’t want to keep his nose clean. Imagine how bad suspensions would have been in WWE back in the mid 90s had there been a wellness policy in place. Scary thought. On the flip side of this match, Epico and Primo need some competition! These guys are the epitome of what tag team wrestling should be, and they are quite entertaining to watch in the ring. If WWE was against the idea of adding more tag teams, that needs to change right away. With Air Boom’s demise, these two really need other challengers outside of the Usos.
We have a backstage segment(#1) where Chris Jericho joins Johnny Ace and David Otunga when JL announces a six man tag tonight with Mark Henry, Ziggler, and Otunga taking on the team of CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and Y2J himself. Finally, Jericho back in action! Who really cares about Otunga, though?
We have a another backstage segment(#2) where Zack Ryder and Eve talk with Josh Matthews about Ryder not being cleared to wrestle tonight. Ryder has a title defense against Jack Swagger tonight. Could anybody else smell a storyline setup for Ryder to lose the title here?
Zack Ryder, damaged ribs and all, takes on Jack Swagger for the US Title. Swagger apparently got this title match because of the screwup last week by the ref when Punk pinned Swagger for a three count when his shoulder was up. Because it involved Swagger, I had honestly forgotten about it already. Swagger dominates this entire match and hits multiple gutwrench powerbombs before getting the three count on Ryder to become the new US Champion.
^First off, I predicted Jack Swagger to be in the US Title/IC Title picture here in 2012. Congrats to him. He needs to continue to be dominant and not act like a joke. Ryder losing the title here is interesting to me. It’s Cena/Hogan resemblance in the sense that there was an excuse for him to lose, and not just a clean victory in a fair contest. This is actually very good news for Zack Ryder in the sense that WWE has no plans for him to straight up lose now without some sort of controversy. It tells me WWE has bigger plans for Zack Ryder in the coming months. WWE just needs to take their time with Ryder’s climb up the ladder and not rush things too quickly(it would be rushing things to have him win the Royal Rumble). I expect this to setup Ryder winning the title back at one of the next two pay per view events.
Backstage segment #3: Laurinaitis apologizes to Ryder and says he wasn’t medically cleared to compete tonight. He says he found out too late. Eve goes to rip into JL and he tells her to shut her mouth and show some respect to authority.
^Didn’t we just see this a couple months ago when Daniel Bryan cashed in on Mark Henry and won the title? Teddy Long reversed the decision because Henry wasn’t medically cleared to compete. Shouldn’t the decision be reversed here? You know there will be a rematch at the Royal Rumble now, but WWE needs to smarten up and be more consistent with their storylines. If it was intentional that they did this to make Teddy Long look like a fair GM and Laurinaitis to be the heel, then congratulations, WWE. You succeeded at getting your point across.
Perez Hilton does the ring announcer position for Alicia Fox and Kelly Kelly taking on the Bellas. C’mon man! This one is short and Kelly gets the rollup pin for the victory.
^The Bellas attack Perez after the match but it ends quickly with Kelly and Alicia stepping in. I know Vince loves bringing in the celebrities, but this was pointless. The only segment of the night that bored me. WWE gets their publicity, but I’ve now got a headache from watching that. You want smart booking? Take out the celebrity time and make the match four minutes longer with actual wrestling. Do some sort of brawl after the fact that requires refs to break it up. Make these divas look legitimate and tough for two seconds, please.
R-Truth comes out to cut a promo. Wade Barrett comes down before anything can be said. Barrett goes off on Truth about how he is going to win the 2012 Royal Rumble. Truth cuts an absolutely hilarious promo on Barrett! Miz ends up coming out and attacking R-Truth along with Barrett. Sheamus comes down to make the save. Teddy Long joins the fun and exercises whatever authority he has and makes a four man over the top rope challenge right now. The three work together to eliminate Barrett first. Miz and Sheamus battle on the ropes and Truth eliminates both of them to win the challenge!
^First of all, Truth cutting his face promo on Barrett and having the crowd on his side to that extent really impresses me. Maybe Truth will become the first black WWE Champion after all. I don’t expect Truth to win the Royal Rumble, but he gets over with the fans well enough that you could make a case for why he needs to be in the main event of pay per views every month.
Backstage segment #4: Cena goes into JL’s office to go off on him about Ryder. JL books Cena in a match with Kane for the Rumble, and books Cena in a match with Jack Swagger next.
^Is working double duty now a requirement for tv shows as well as ppv events? Swagger wrestles twice just because? You have a roster full of guys that aren’t even on the show. Why not book one of them to face Cena? Terrible(by terrible, I mean lazy and sloppy) booking here.
John Cena goes off on Jack Swagger as their match starts. He tosses him all around ringside. Cena is about to hit Swagger in the head with the steel steps when Kane’s music hits. Kane cuts a promo on the tron and doesn’t come to the ring. Kane tells Cena he is finally getting it and he will have embraced the hate by the time they meet at the Rumble.
^This is actually clever booking. Cena getting so pissed off that he does things he’s never done before. I like it. I’d like it more if I hadn’t seen him as brutal as he was in his match with Umaga(RIP) at the Royal Rumble a few years back. WWE won’t remind us of these things though. Kane is still just Kane(with a mask, if that matters to some of you). I think their match at the Rumble will be solid, however. Cena embracing the hate and getting angry might be the fuel that he needs(in storyline, I mean) to go into WrestleMania to defeat The Rock.
Brodus Clay is out next for a match with JTG. This is a fast squash match where Brodus gets the win.
^I pray this guy isn’t booked to win the Royal Rumble. Honestly, though, good for Brodus Clay. They repackaged him and are giving him victories over low card talent. He’s also getting over with the crowd. Is he champion material? I don’t see it. It’s definitely refreshing to see such a different type of gimmick, but how long before this becomes stale? WWE needs to give him a rivalry. Maybe they can set one up based on who he eliminates in the Royal Rumble.
Daniel Bryan cuts a promo before the six man tag main event. Bryan says he appreciates AJ and will show her just how much this Friday when he defends his World Title against Mark Henry. Six man tag time! This is a well put together match before things go crazy. Jericho gets tagged in finally, and he revs up the crowd! Then he walks out. Somewhat predictable here. Bryan and Mark Henry brawl to the back, leaving CM Punk alone with Dolph Ziggler and David Otunga. Mick Foley comes out and tells the referee that Johnny Ace has added him to the match to be on Punk’s team. Foley ends up getting in the ring and hitting the double arm DDT on David Otunga and then using Mr. Socko for the submission victory!
^First of all, brilliant continuation of the new Jericho gimmick, even if you could see it coming. This sets up CM Punk to be angry with Jericho going into next week’s Raw. Daniel Bryan brawling with Mark Henry to the back took them out of the picture; again, I like this move too. Mick Foley getting involved again? I see one of two things happening with that. The first is that Foley could himself into the Royal Rumble match somehow on next week’s Raw. The second I’ll discuss momentarily. Otunga got used as the guy to lose the match. It’s really all he’s good for anyway. Neither Ziggler nor Punk loses momentum heading into their match for the Rumble. Congratulations WWE, you booked a PERFECT setup for this match(in my opinion, anyway).
JL comes down after the match and says he never gave Foley permission to enter the match. JL reverses the decision of the match. Punk grabs the microphone from JL and goes off on him. Punk gets angry and insults JL with a rant. Punk ends up leaving the ring after humiliating JL. Foley and JL exchange words and JL admits that he will screw CM Punk at the Royal Rumble. He hits Foley with the microphone after he goes off on a long, angry rant. JL walks out and Raw goes off the air.
^CM Punk got the crowd alive here! Absolutely incredible mic work from CM Punk. WWE, it’s about time you let this guy go off on JL the way he needed to. Unfortunately, WWE, you then let JL try to rant. Fail. It was beyond pathetic. The words can barely come out of his mouth properly when he speaks slow. Speed this guy’s voice up and it’s like a spew of vomit going everywhere. Sylvester from Looney Toons, anybody? JL’s mention of soon becoming the permanent GM of Raw leaves me to wonder if Foley will possibly become the new permanent GM of Raw. So it’s 50/50 with this segment for me. On the one hand, Punk was amazing. On the other hand, JL needs speech therapy. His only saving grace is that he hit Mick Foley, and WWE fans love Mick Foley. The heel heat was there as needed.
To say I enjoyed Raw a lot would be an understatement. Compared to the Kane/Ryder cheesy horror film chase that we saw last week, this show was great. Could we have done without the divas? Yup. Could the matches have been a little bit longer? Yeah, but there was some solid in ring action as well. CM Punk really delivered tonight for me. He opened the show strong and closed the show strong. That’s how a WWE Champion SHOULD BE BOOKED. Overall, I give this one very high marks. I’ll be back with Smackdown at the end of the week. Until then, you’ve been ThunderStruck!
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