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This episode was a mixed bag. The build to Wrestlemania was not as good as previous weeks, but we saw another excellent video package for the Undertaker/Triple H match. We got another match announced for Wrestlemania and the finishing touches may have been made on a second new match. This week’s show bucks a past trend where the show two weeks before a WWE pay per view was the strongest show in the build, but with Undertaker and Triple H facing off and the Rock making an appearance on the final Raw before Wrestlemania, it might be the most important Raw in a long time.
Here are my thoughts on this week’s show.
The show opened with Michael Cole dressing up as Jim Ross and coming out to JR’s music while mocking what happened to JR on last week’s show. I don’t know how many people thought it was going to be Jim Ross, but I did not expect it to be him, and if we had seen the announce table and Cole not in his Glory Hole, more people would have known it was him and not Jim.
I don’t think I have ever seen anyone wear a neck brace on their leg.
I almost thought that as soon as Triple H’s music played, that we would see Undertaker come out dressed like Hunter to continue the ‘I went through someone else’s closet today’ theme.
I thought Hunter did a good job of talking about the grandeur of the match. However, a lot of what he was saying about the match is what is usually said about a Hell in a Cell or Elimination Chamber Match. While the fact that it is a No Holds Barred Match (which was discussed later in the show during the video package), I don’t usually associate that type of match with the cage matches where careers are never the same again.
Hunter is also conveying that he will not retire if he cannot beat the Undertaker because he is willing to die trying and will not ride off into the sunset if he cannot have his hand raised, he is going to go into the sun.
It makes sense to have a face to face show down on the last full new show before Wrestlemania (since they usually give us recaps of Axxess and other Wrestlemania week activities on the final Smackdown) and because Raw typically draws two million more viewers.
When Ted DiBiase came out to confront Hunter, I almost expected to see Triple H ask Ted if he was still on the roster. I guess the momentum from The Marine 2 has not translated over the last year. I also think Ted was being a little generous calling himself an ‘afterthought’ the way that he is booked.
If Ted was able to ‘take care of’ Triple H, did he think that he was going to get inserted into the match with the Undertaker?
Since Sheamus had his rear end handed to him by Triple H a few weeks ago, does that mean that Ted is going to win the United States Title?
If someone from WWE asks you if you want to be in a sequel of a movie, you probably should say no. At the FCW Arena in Tampa there is an autographed photo from Ted DiBiase promoting Marine 2. The way he is going, he might be able to sign a few more.
Will we see a member of Nexus return to television first or Ted DiBiase?
I liked that they brought back the Bourne/Sheamus feud this week. I wish it would have been a longer match, but it reminded me of the short match that Daniel Bryan had with William Regal last year that was able to accomplish enough in the short period of time. Bourne was able to get in some offense, but he tried to do too much and when he missed the shooting star press, it was all over for him.
I thought Sheamus’ promo after the match was good. It was funny to hear him point out that he was the champion of the United States since he is the US Champion. I was hoping that we would see Jim Duggan make an appearance to stand up for the United States against Sheamus and give us a ‘USA’ chant. However, for storyline purposes, I like that they set up the Daniel Bryan/Sheamus match for Wrestlemania. I think that can be the match of the night if they are given enough time to showcase what they can do.
I guess Daniel Bryan missed the audio where I discussed ‘Rule 420’ that if you are ever tossed anything, you never catch it because it is going to be used against you.
The moment that we saw Randy Orton coming out of his bus, was there anyone who did not say ‘I can’t wait to see CM Punk by the bus and see what he does to Randy’s family’.
It was nice to see Scott Stanford finally make it onto Raw. For people who are not familiar with Scott, he co-hosts the Free for All before pay per views with Jack Korpela and is also the play by play announcer for the Raw matches on Superstars.
Unless they are going to do a match next week with Michael Cole going ‘full Andy Kaufman’ and challenging Eve Torres, I did not like Michael Cole’s antics during the Divas match. I did not like it the first time he did it. I know that there are people who are loving the Michael Cole character, but it is just something that I am not enjoying. While I am looking forward to seeing what Jerry Lawler, Steve Austin, and the guy in the fifteenth row at Wrestlemania is going to do to Cole, it is more a situation of payback for having to endure some really subpar announcing over the last year on all shows.
The actual match between Eve and Maryse was not really memorable but it makes sense that Maryse shouldn’t be able to win because she is so fed up with Ted DiBiase being a loser that she can’t even win. Maryse did get some offense in, but I don’t think there was enough to return her to the Divas title picture at this time.
I did like that Eve tried to go after Cole for what he did during the match. As I mentioned above, unless we get a match next week, what was the purpose?
Since they are the tag champs, it makes sense that the Corre would be on Raw to face challengers for their titles. The tag match was okay for television. It looks like The Corre has learned the formula for a Santino/Kozlov tag match so they are trying to avoid that formula and they were able to force Santino to use the cobra at the wrong time. The distraction cost Kozlov and I like the inverted DDT to set up the 450 Splash. It is a combination of moves that should work together. The inverted DDT causes a shock to the body of the person who takes the hold and then they are unable to recover in time to avoid Gabriel’s 450 splash.
As soon as the post match beat down of Kozlov and Marella started, I was waiting for Big Show and Kane to make their way to the ring. I did not expect to hear their entrance music because that led to Corre following Unwritten Rule #2: If music plays, you must stop doing everything so you can watch the other people walk to the ring no matter how much damage you could inflict on your opponents.
I was surprised that they had Ezekiel Jackson taken care of by Show and Kane. To this point, Jackson had been so imposing the way that he took care of Big Show the last few weeks.
I guess the chair shots that Show and Kane gave to each other is the first sign in wrestling today that you are going to be tag team partners and you are going to have your entrance music combined.
Here are some potential team names:
The Big Red Machine
The Kane Show
Superstars
The Kings of Sports Entertaining
See Our Knuckleheads
The Black Eyed Peas
The Choke Slammers
I like that it appears that they are going to do Show, Kane, Kozlov, and Marella as a team to face Corre since they all have a reason to feud with Corre. It is a shame that guys like Drew McIntyre and Kofi Kingston appear to be out of luck for Mania.
When they first showed John Cena’s ‘house’ ‘via satellite’, I was thinking that the couch in the background is not something that you would normally see in a person’s house so when will Cena attack Miz.
I thought the questions asked by Josh and Lawler were good because they were able to cover the issues that Cena had with the Rock in addition to having Cena admit that he might have overlooked Miz. I was a bit surprised that Cole did not praise Miz during this segment and run down Cena. Cena was also able to put over Miz and what he has done, which is usually what you see from a heel, but it was still effective.
As I mentioned above, I have not been the biggest fan of the current Michael Cole character because of the way that he has handled his announcing duties. This week’s attempt to run down Jerry Lawler fell flat for me. The only good thing was having Jack Swagger being the Maginot Line for Cole to protect him from Lawler. Showing photos of someone typically does not work, and I did not think it helped anything for this feud.
If Lawler has gone this long without attacking Cole, why would he do so less than two weeks before Mania and risk his job?
I forget which show it was mentioned on, but I agree with whoever said that someone should just start throwing things into Cole’s autonomous nation of Jerklandia.
I thought the first part of the Ziggler/Morrison match. I thought they were getting into a groove before the interference that led to our handicap match thanks to the General Manager.
The handicap match was okay. I liked that they made it an intergender match, and even though they followed the mixed tag match rules with the men facing the women, I liked that they pointed out that it was an intergender match so the men could wrestle the women so the finish would not be disputed. I was surprised that Morrison would be distracted by Layla pulling Trish off the apron, allowing Ziggler to move out of the way and causing Morrison to miss the corkscrew split legged moonsault. I liked the finish with Vickie getting the victory over Morrison even though Vickie is not in the match.
Trish looked good in the ring in the match and I liked her interaction with Layla.
I wonder if we will have Snooki on next week’s Raw even though it is already stacked.
The weekly Undertaker/Triple H video package might have been the best thing on this week’s show. Since we had already heard Shawn Michaels’ thoughts on the match, it was good to get comments from active and former wrestlers (I hope I don’t have to retract this column for calling people like Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson, and Dusty Rhodes ‘wrestlers’ but I am willing to take the risk). It was also good to have people who had fallen victim to Taker during the streak included. I liked that some of the people commented on the first confrontation between Taker and Hunter when nothing was said and how much it conveyed without anything being said. It also allowed for others to talk about how the streak is perceived in the locker room and what it would mean on both sides of the ledger.
I look forward to seeing this package in some form on NXT, Superstars, and Smackdown this week.
The Orton/Mysterio match was good while it lasted. I liked the sequence with Rey sending Orton into the ropes for the 619 only to have Orton grab Rey’s legs and set up fro the IEDDT. Before Randall could hit the RKO, he was interrupted by CM Punk, who just happened to find Randy’s bus.
I thought Orton reacted the right way to having someone like CM Punk so close to his family. I also liked that Punk was able to fake out Orton to allow Punk to hit Orton in the leg with the wrench.
The blown kiss by Punk was a great way to end that segment.
If Punk wanted a crazed Randy Orton to face at Wrestlemania, what better way to make him make Charlie Sheen look like someone who ingested a case of Xanax.
Just when the Miz was able to establish himself as someone who does not need a lackey to fight all of his fights, Alex Riley is back and he is the new Vice President in Charge of Talent Relations.
I thought Miz cut another strong promo as he got ready for Wrestlemania. I have liked how Miz tries to say that he is better than some of the sport’s legends. Miz is the type of person who should believe that he is better than everyone else and he is able to back it up over the last few months.
I thought it was a great touch to have Miz talk about how he was going to turn things upside down and he did it by turning the ‘W’ on the title belt upside down.
I liked that during Cena’s final promo, he slowly tore down the fantasy and what better way than to have people wearing the gear of the local sports teams in the back fixing the furniture to reveal that the promo IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE ARENA!!! Get out NOW . . . before the murderer comes back.
Alex Riley served his purpose at the end by being the person who would be treated like General Zod after Superman reversed the ‘Krypton de-powering beam’ in the Fortress of Solitude. Cena showed a lot of aggression going after Riley and after the STFs, he tried to go after Cena. Miz did a good job of showing concern for Riley but never trying to help him.
What to watch on DVR/Youtube/any other place you can find the show: The Triple H/Undertaker video package; Miz’s promo; and the Bourne/Sheamus match for some good action in a short match as well as the post match activities that led to the Sheamus/Bryan match. If you have an extra 12 minutes, watch the latest Botchamania.
