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LOOKING AT THE GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF LAST NIGHT'S RAW

RAW - 06/08/2012                    E: revinsamuel@rogers.com
What needs to be accomplished on tonight’s show?
•Last week’s Raw while a good effort from a wrestling stand point dragged far too much. This is going to be a process for WWE, but the first thing they need to do is to eliminate the repetitive video packages. Stephanie McMahon came back for one show and that’s already too much for me. Pacing is key for tonight
•Summerslam blitz. For some reason last week WWE really seemed to have a hangover going on from Raw 1000 and Summerslam still wasn’t getting the respect it deserved. I hope tonight they really put it in gear to promote this show.
•I’d like to see Jericho-Ziggler announced tonight, because we know they are going there and I’d rather they just announce it then wait till the go home show to toss it out there like it’s unimportant
•Triple H-Brock. If Lesnar and HHH are going to be on Raw tonight, WWE should have said something last week. It would be very weird not to see them as that would leave one week to push their match. Both men need to be on tonight’s show and they need to go out of their way to make this match feel special. Summerslam has a history of having big time grudge matches on the show from Triple H-Shawn Michaels to Hulk Hogan-Shawn Michaels, and so far this one is not living up to those ones in terms of build and anticipation
•AJ as GM. I hated the debut of her in this role. The made her a mini Stephanie right away and there is a fine line between playing the babyface GM who is stern and playing a bitch when you are playing to a male dominated audience. I’m not sure how they can fix this, but I’d take her out of the power suit for starters. I just don’t think that personality was designed for this role, but let’s see how it plays out this week.
•CM Punk. I enjoyed that they didn’t insult our intelligence last week and have CM Punk go full out heel. I hope that the trend continues this week and while there are minor and subtle changes to him, he doesn’t do anything blatantly out of character
Show Breakdown

1. Standard opening video package. I don’t care for part that contains Punk feuding with AJ. Didn’t AJ love Punk? Suddenly she’s just like every other GM and throws down with the triple threat matches. If they were going to write her this way they would have been better off putting someone else in the role. Sometimes I wonder if the GM device is used so the writers have someone to write for on a consistent basis.

2. New intro package. I don’t mind the song, but the package itself is standard WWE. Its slick, slightly different, but nothing that steps away from what they are comfortable with.

3. Surprise, surprise Raw opens with the GM. Nothing new here. I’m bored before she opens her mouth. BTW, I’m guessing some of AJ’s appeal to that male teen demographic was in her attire so naturally WWE has covered her up completely.

4. At least she gets to the point and starts announcing matches right away. She announces two “blockbuster” matches to start with, Show-Orton and Bryan-Cena.  I’m interested to see how much time they give Bryan and Cena.

5. Punk out and cue the standard top tier guy having to feud with the General Manager. I’m not holding my breath for anything different.

6. I have to hand it to WWE for the way they are writing Punk. I am pleasantly surprised by this opening exchange between Punk and AJ and I popped huge for Punk not only bringing up that AJ was in love with him, but also whether AJ is going to be the standard evil GM out to screw with the top guy.

7. Cena comes out to the standard mixed reaction and so far he’s managed to avoid too much bad comedy. Punk stupidly says Cena can’t AA the Big Show when he’s done it a thousand times. He kind of saves it afterwards by saying Cena’s back isn’t what it used to be.

8. I like Punk bringing up that he beat Cena last year at Summerslam. This should be emphasized more going forward.

9. I also like that Punk isn’t acting like a heel and wanting the night off and instead is asking for a match tonight.

10. Flat ending to the opening segment as Big Show comes out yet AJ says she’s not going to let things get out of hang and Show stops dead in his tracks as he’s headed to the ring and isn’t seen again? Weird

11. WWE needs to stop using twitter to decide matches if they are just going to patronize the audience. Punk’s match is next against either Miz, Rey or Kane. I’m pretty sure we know who is going to win that one. Vince has absolutely no respect his fan base!

12. The more interesting poll options would have been Rey, Jericho and Kane or Rey, Dolph and Kane. It’s the Miz part that is irritating, because you know nobody is voting for him.

13. We get a graphic promoting Brock and Triple H for later, I’m amazed WWE was so stupid as to not advertise this last week.

14. Back from commercial and Michael Cole mentions for the second time that AJ wants to be the most active social media general manager. I don’t need to hear that again.

15. Rey of course wins the vote with nearly 50% of the vote and I actually thought he would have gotten more of the vote. Surprisingly Miz got 23%, which is baffling.

16. I like that as Rey was coming out Michael Cole mentioned the history between Punk and Rey.

17. “I don’t know if there has ever been a more popular person in WWE than this young man” – Jerry Lawler in reference to Rey Mysterio. It’s these types of statements that continue to kill Lawler’s credibility.

18. In the opening segment Punk told AJ he should be in the main event, but instead the WWE Champion is in the opening match. I hope this will be mentioned at a later point, but I’m guessing not.

19. Punk and Rey in a quality match and Punk gets the clean win. Welcome to two strikes Rey.

20. Alberto Del Rio arriving backstage in his Ferrari and I’m sure that might be a foreshadowing for the end of said Ferrari.

21. A new vignette for Wade Barrett and it was pretty slick. I’m not sure we need a new introduction as perhaps a tagline hinting at his return as oppose to acting like this is a new character, but that’s me nitpicking.

22. In addition to Brock and Hunter not being advertised last week, WWE also decided to not advertise Shawn  Michaels last week as we see a graphic now for him. This is what happens when you write the show days before you go live.

23. Christian “the former world champion” as Michael Cole says doesn’t even get an entrance in a three hour show. We are getting Christian and Alberto next and  I like the attention to detail though with AJ telling Alberto before commercial that he’d be in a match next and Alberto not being in his gear as he walks towards the ring.

24. We get a flashback to the violent beating Del Rio gave to Sheamus when he rammed the hood into Sheamus skull. That was a great angle that put a mean streak on Del Rio so I like that they keep replaying it.

25. This is the second show in a row where Ricardo has interfered in Alberto’s match leading to Alberto winning so I hope this is leading to him being barred from ringside at Summerslam otherwise it’s just weak cop out finishes by WWE Creative/Producers/Agents, whatever.

26. Naturally the Ferrari comes into play as Sheamus decides to take it for a spin. Sheamus shouldn’t call Alberto “Berty”, that’s like John Cena saying “poopie”.

27. As we get set for Orton-Show, I must say I’m surprised we haven’t got any Tout mentions yet.

28. Granted its John Cena and Randy Orton, but this is the second week in a row someone has kicked out of the choke slam and WWE doesn’t need to set that precedent.

29. Orton and Big Show go to the double count out so we can see where Randy stands with his two wellness failures as oppose to Rey.

30. No reason for us to see Orton hitting the RKO on Show after the match. You can do that for the live crowd, but they should have gone to commercial for the viewers at home.

31. Interesting that in the Summerslam commercial they have replaced Kelly Kelly with Eve Torres and Layla.

32. Reks and Hawkins in the ring and they have new gear. I hope they didn’t get new gear to lose a handicap match to Ryback.

33. Michael Cole throws to a Ryback inset interview and I hate how he led to it by saying Ryback wants to tell us about his catchphrase. It’s so stupid to point this type of stuff out. Just let him say it, don’t tell us it’s his catchphrase, because then it becomes part of the machine and it doesn’t become fun anymore. It’s just like when Michael Cole kept saying pipe bomb, it ruined the entire appeal of the verbiage.

34. Ryback beats Hawkins and Ryder and can go back to Smackdown for his ongoing program with Jinder Mahal.

35. Here’s AW back with a live microphone against Primo and Epico sans Rosa Mendes. I’m surprised they’d put Primo and Epico on Raw tonight without Rosa.

36. I’m surprised WWE would give us a Ryback match followed by Primo and Epico in the second hour of Raw. I would have put the tag match following Rey-Punk then done Orton-Show, the Ryback match and follow that up with Del Rio-Christian, but I’m guessing they want people to stay tuned in during the first hour and therefore went with this match order.

37. Why do we need to hear Kofi and Truth’s music when they come out? This seemed like a time where the guys should have come out without their theme song.

38. Primo and Epico beat the PTP, but I’m sure somehow PTP will get another tag title shot even though they’ve already lost to Truth and Kofi.

39. Three Hour Raw’s equal more chances to develop characters and that’s what we get right now with a focus on Damien Sandow and what happened to him at the hands of DX and how he responded by beating down Brodus Clay. Sandow with a brief promo and I have no issue with this. With three hours WWE should be taking advantage of it to develop new characters.

40. Sandow assaults Clay again before the match and I’m unsure why Clay was smiling as he came out since he got beat down last week so he deserves this from where I sit!

41. The crowd is booing Sandow and so it looks like the cheap shot attacks are working to garner heel heat from the audience!

42. WWE has done two angles now to build to an eventual match between Sandow and Clay...so naturally I assume it will be an unannounced, bonus match on Summerslam.

43. AJ and Daniel Bryan backstage and we get a 4th match announced for Summerslam as Bryan-Kane is made official.

44. Well just as I wonder why Kelly Kelly was taken out of the Summerslam commercial, she shows up for a match. I believe I heard Mike Johnson say in a recent audio that he doesn’t think the divas get any television time because the only female WWE thinks is a draw is Kelly Kelly and I don’t get that line of thinking at all. She’s fine and she’s the blonde bombshell, but again the audience isn’t that stupid. I’m sure they respect the girls that are attractive and can work as oppose to just loving Kelly, because she’s the blonde. It’s the type of thinking you get from out of touch, old men in my view.

45. We get the first mention of the night for Tout that I can think of as Cole tells us that this Eve-Kelly match is happening because AJ was upset at a Tout from Eve.

46. Kelly Kelly beats Eve and three hours equals more than a minute of ring time for the divas.

47. It’s Shawn Michaels time as we start hour number three and as I see him; I’m just bewildered that WWE choose not to mention this last week.

48. Shawn really has nothing to say and here comes Brock and Paul. I hope WWE does this right even though it’s predictable.

49. Great start to the exchange with Heyman’s promo noting that Brock Lesnar isn’t going to Summerslam to “entertain” like Shawn Michaels does.

50. Another anticlimactic Brock-Hunter segment. The storyline is being done all wrong and it’s too bad. You involve Hunter, his ego and his insecurities and this is the best they can do. They are turning this into Brock going after Hunter’s family, and to me that sets the stage for a Triple H victory. The babyface beats the heel that attacked his family, that’s logically storytelling, but the only problem is Brock never really went after Hunter’s family. WWE is attempting to manipulate the audience with this logic so it justifies Hunter going over in my opinion.

51. I assume Brock saying he’ll see Shawn before Summerslam means Shawn is getting laid out backstage tonight.

52. Sheamus sends out a Tout while driving Del Rio’s car and that is actually the smartest usage of Tout they’ve had since introducing it.

53. Jericho takes a seat at commentary and immediately amps it up on the charisma.

54. Vickie out to introduce Dolph and she says Dolph will do what Cena couldn’t do and that’s cash in money in the bank successfully. I’m not sure if it was just my TV, but Vickie was bleeped out for a few seconds when she was mentioning Cena’s failure. Coincidence?

55. Cole points out all of Jericho’s failure since his return and Jericho’s response “but I’m always in these big matches”. This storyline works, because it’s based on reality. I also like Jericho acknowledging that perhaps he hasn’t had the fire and this is the guy to get him going.

56. Riley surprises Ziggler with the victory roll up and it works, because the program is based on Ziggler having a big head.

57. Jericho says “You’ll see what happens over the next few weeks”; he can’t say Summerslam, because the match hasn’t been announced yet! Why can’t this company announce more than one match in a night for a pay per view? Oh right this is the same company that thinks Kelly Kelly is their most popular diva because she’s a blonde. They don’t have any respect for their audiences intelligent comprehension.

58. As Kane comes out, I’ve reached my point where the show is beginning to drag. It will be interesting to find these points each week, because I know I’m going to hit that point every week. They made it almost 2 and half hours keeping me pretty much engaged.

59. When Kane and Miz started wrestling I thought to myself, how are they going to get a finish out of this match? I’ve watched the WWE product for too long so I figured Bryan isn’t going to interfere since his match is right around the corner, maybe if this was in the first hour, but not the third hour. Miz isn’t getting counted out since they already did that with Show and Orton and Eve attempted it. Kane could have won by DQ, but that would mean we’d have to see the program continue and WWE doesn’t want to do that with Kane married to Bryan, which meant there was only one way this ended and that was Kane cleanly and decidedly beating the IC champion. You know what all this means? They shouldn’t have booked the match to begin with.

60. Actually now that I see Bryan coming out for the match with Cena, I don’t know why they didn’t just have Bryan attack Kane and get Miz DQ’d. That’s logical and it would make sense to help build anticipation for his match with Kane at Summerslam, while not having to cleanly beat The Miz. Bryan would have been able to just stay in the ring after that. This company just doesn’t have it all together sometimes.

61. Sheamus returns with Del Rio’s car and the car has been totalled.

62. The crowd chanting “Let’s go Cena”, “Cena sucks” and Bryan smartly takes the crowd off of Cena and puts it on him. Bryan plays this character tremendously. WWE has to be careful with the line where this character just becomes comedy though.

63. Bryan and Cena having a strong match here. Bryan looks to be taking most of the match so I assume he’ll be taking the loss.

64. WWE really should prohibit Bryan from doing the flying head butt.

65. You know Bryan is being protected in WWE when they let him escape the STF. It was a clever finish, Bryan escapes the STF, tries to go into the No Lock, but Cena reverses it into the AA.

66. Gorgeous promo from Punk to Lawler. I think I would have left it there, but instead Show knocks out both Cena and Punk.

67. Shockingly no angle with Shawn Michaels before and Brock Lesnar as the show closes out.