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LOOKING AT THIS WEEK'S RAW GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

RAW - 12/03/2012
What needs to be accomplished on this week’s Raw?
•Shawn Michaels-Undertaker. I’m really interested to see how this confrontation goes down. I hope Undertaker brings up the possibility that Shawn and Hunter are in cahoots. He could also bring up Shawn as referee costing him the WWE Championship once before at Summerslam 1997, but that might be really dating himself to do that
•Chris Jericho and CM Punk. This feud has been watered down a little in my opinion, because of the physical contact that is happening between the two. I understand WWE’s perspective might be that there two top programs are doing promo battles without getting physical so they don’t want to have this one be the same, but tonight I think we need promos from both men or at least from one of them - Punk talking about Jericho laying him out two weeks and pinning him last week or Jericho bragging about it.
•Rock and Cena. Alot of people are concerned about The Rock concert vs The Cena rap, but I have to say I have no issue with it if we compare it to some of the other things WWE Creative might think of (Car accident angle alert). You can’t have them in the ring cutting promos on each other while just standing there listening to the other guy run them down so this is hopefully an interesting way to cut promos on each other. WWE has gone the route of having Cena no sell Rock and being Rock’s equal and I think it’s a failing strategy that just hurts Rock’s appeal, but it’s what WWE has chosen to do. My hope with these promos is that they don’t tear each other down too much and can find a way to build up the match at the same time. Wrestling 101.
•WWE announced today that they are doing a six on six tag match in the battle for power and I like that this was announced and that now we can get find out whom the participants will be. Mike reported the plan for this match is Swagger, Ziggler, Christian, Del Rio, Henry and Otunga against Kingston, Truth, Santino, Khali, Jackson and possibly Rey or Bourne. Teddy’s side is kind of weak on paper and Jackson has been made to look like a complete tool on Smackdown. Hopefully Rey is available to work this show as part of the babyface team and I’d also replace Jackson with Mick Foley just for the star power. Even Evan Bourne would be fine, but I really hope Zek isn’t on the Teddy Long team.
Show Breakdown

1. Good rap from Cena. My problem with it is that if Cena doesn’t sustain this new attitude post Wrestlemania what’s it all for? I don’t think there is any foresight or long term planning with this adjustment to the Cena character, but what else is new. I don’t want to see him rap every week, but I also don’t want to see him as a goofy D version of Rock. It’s been a refreshing change of pace in some aspects, but the question remains what happens once Rock is gone?
2. Also no surprise to see Cena pull out the Cleveland jersey, play on Miami, bring up the tooth fairy and also insult himself. Standard strategies that we’ve gotten used to so Cena can water down the reaction he gets.
3. Hearing Sheamus’s music made me cringe just because I don’t have the desire to see Dolph job out in a few minutes to Sheamus. Hopefully Dolph takes most of the match before losing.
4. Sweet bump by Dolph taking the toss over the top rope.
5. Ah Daniel Bryan and AJ. I continue to love their dynamic. “AJ loves me...and the feeling is mutual”, outstanding stuff.
6. I’m enjoying this Dolph-Sheamus match and it helps that Dolph isn’t getting squashed. That’s showing a bit of forward thinking by The Bubble, that’s a rarity. Cool finish.
7. Follow up a quality match with two characters I don’t care for, Santino and Aksana. Santino and David Otunga are the captains for Teddy Long and John Laurinaitis, oh my.
8. Well at least if I have to put up with Santino and Aksana, I can at least see two characters I enjoy in David Otunga and Mark Henry.
9. I thoroughly enjoyed that handicap match and the refocus on Mark Henry after a few weeks of jobbing. Henry looked like an absolute beast tonight and Smackdown last week. The Raw team looks pretty weak after Henry and Otunga were able to easily take out three of them with ease. Hopefully Teddy and WWE Creative have a couple studs in their back pocket as the final three members of Team Teddy and I don’t mean Great Khali and Ezekiel Jackson.
10. Fast Forwarded right through that plug for Miz on Psych.
11. Fast Forwarded right through the Extra plug for the divas
12. Zack Ryder made to look like a complete fool. You don’t want to hurt the jobs of those sixteen members of WWE Creative, Zackary. That will teach you for trying to get over on your own.
13. Beth Phoenix makes her first appearance in forever, also looking ridiculous.
14. Fuankasaurus returns and just in time to be on Team Teddy’s team if you ask me!
15. Jinder Mahal should probably join Ezekiel Jackson in the worried for your job category. BTW if Brodus ends up as a member of Team Teddy, I think it would have made better television to hold him off and bring him back when they were going to announce him as a part of Team Teddy as oppose to having him do a ten second squash of Jinder. Of course I don’t think I should assume by any means that Brodus will be on Teddy’s team.
16. Another great segment for Shawn, Hunter and Undertaker basically implying the possibility of Shawn and Hunter being in cahoots without actually saying it. Brilliant!
17. Why is Michael Cole or Vince McMahon obsessed with the word “attitudinal”, very dopey.
18. Interesting direction with the route of Punk and Jericho. Jericho cut a good promo, Punk’s reaction was interesting, but I’m not sure how I feel about it at this point in time.
19. Funny infomercial for David Otunga lawyer services and twitter.
20. Nice match with Orton and Swagger and I continue to like the build with Orton and Kane. It seems basic and easy to me.
21. I like the two plugs for next week. Hopefully Mark doesn’t have to job out clean to Cena.
22. I see alot of signs in the crowd that would appear to be pro Cena. I  know the design of this program has been to split the reaction between John and Rock, but I still question knowing the tactics of WWE whether they are planted signs.
23. Funny “Cleveland Rock” song from The Rock. Smart strategy to make it about the hometown city, but Rock had the crowd in the palm of his hand anyways.
24. The Rock on absolute fire here! I love the line about Eve and Cena’s wife. I was calling for it after last week when Cena mentioned his wife.
25. Not sure how I felt about that ending “We will rock you” song, but it probably gave Cena some material for next week.

What this show accomplished?

The Good

•Shawn and Undertaker confrontation. Great stuff and they hit on the possibility of Shawn screwing Taker. I get why they didn’t want to bring up Shawn’s history of screwing Taker as a referee, but I also liked that they plugged the wwe.com article on Shawn’s history and how Triple H has never lost with Shawn as the referee

•The Rock and John Cena. Both men delivered on the mic. Cena was his usual self deprecating self, while tearing Rock down and hyping Wrestlemania. Rock was also great, although his ending song was tough to make work, but he tried his best given the material. He probably should have vetoed that ending, although it gives Cena nice material for next week.  

•The plugs for next week’s Raw. I liked that they plugged two things for next week’s Raw and it’s something they should do more often and not just during Wrestlemania season

•Randy and Kane. I continue to like this build. We haven’t got any whacky Kane promos and it’s been a pretty concise and basic story being told

•Teddy and Johnny. Again I liked this one. It wasn’t overbearing and taking over the entire show and made Mark Henry out to be a monster. I’m looking forward to seeing where it’s going

•Good wrestling. Orton-Swagger, Ziggler-Sheamus and Miz-Punk were all pretty good.

•Daniel Bryan and AJ promo. They continue to be a nice pairing with good chemistry

The Bad

•Zack Ryder. Poor Zack. What a horrid storyline they’ve gotten him into. I thought this was leading to Zack duping Eve and it still might be, but the verbiage they gave him tonight was wretched and smelled of sabotage

•Brodus Clay returns...and it was kind of underwhelming   

•The Psych guy...don’t care.

•Beth Phoenix is the divas champ, she shouldn’t be placating to Eve.

Overall Thoughts

•I enjoyed this show. Notice I didn’t put Chris Jericho/CM Punk in the good or bad column and while Jericho’s promo was good and Punk’s reaction was good, I’m not sure how I feel about it and will wait till next week to see how they follow it up. Rock and Cena both were fine, I could have used a little more focus on Wrestlemania. Undertaker got the date wrong, Rock went on about scratching an itch and Cena mentioned it and kicking Rock’s ass so he gets bonus points

What needs to be accomplished next week?

•Two weeks out and they are doing what I assume will be the final confrontation with Shawn, Undertaker and Triple H. The build has been solid so far, and I don’t want to complain, but I still feel like it might be missing one little piece of the puzzle to really make me want to see it. Hopefully that is delivered next week

•John Cena-Mark Henry. Hopefully Mark isn’t buried is all I care about in this match!

•I am still hoping WWE will do a video package on different celebrities picking who they think will win between Rock and Cena like they did for the Battle of the Billionaires at Wrestlemania 23. That is the proper use of celebrities

•Finding out more of the participants for Team Long vs Team Ace

•CM Punk and Chris Jericho. I’ve got two schools of thoughts here. One is that Jericho berates and belittles Punk again and then Punk goes Punk like on the go home show or Punk cuts a viscous Punk promo next week. You know WWE is doing something right when they can go a couple different routes and make it good and I’m interested to see which one they take

•Zack Ryder. Someone save this man from the jaws of WWE Creative

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