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RAW - 10/09/2012 E: revinsamuel@rogers.com
What needs to be accomplished on this week’s Raw?
•WWE is in my home country tonight or as they refer to it “Bizzaro Land” even though Chicago, New York and other major markets have the same reaction to their product. Personally a thing I’d like them to do tonight is not refer to Canada as “Bizzaro Land”
•NOC Champions hype. I said last week “hit it hard, hit it fast” and that is the truth for this show. Two title matches have yet to be determined and hopefully the US title challenger doesn’t involve Santino
•Punk and Heyman. We can safely assume these two will make the material work, the only question is will the material be good. Will it make sense? Will it be logical?
Show Breakdown
What a reaction for Bret. If Bret let that go on, I think it could have topped Hogan’s 2002 pop when he returned to Montreal.
Let them go Bret!
Bret doesn’t let them go.
Punk interrupts to major heel heat and Vince McMahon must love Canada again. Now let’s not have John Cena come out as the superficial hero.
Punk and Hart setting up a match between the two that isn’t going to happen.
Bret suddenly has footage of Punk taking out John Cena...because Bret knew Punk would be coming out. This is what I am talking about when I say WWE needs to modernize how they write television. The formula that Kevin Dunn and Vince McMahon use is so antiquated when it comes to telling stories.
I’ll say this much for Bret, he’s doing a hell of alot better job than Roddy Piper a few weeks back. It doesn’t appear he’s forgotten much of the dialog the writing team came up for him.
Punk and Bret segment ends flat, but the crowd made it.
For some reason Bret is going to interview John Cena later, because that is playing to Bret’s strengths. Is Vince McMahon going to once again try and use Bret to get John the superficial positive reaction?
The twitter poll for tonight is who does the viewer want to see face Punk between Brodus, Jerry Lawler and Randy Orton and this is a risk for WWE. I don’t put it out of the realm of possibility that Lawler could win that one.
Lawler says he’d love to get his hands on Punk and I wish Lawler would say he tried, but he was no match for the WWE Champion.
Cesaro’s title will be defended against the winner of a YouTube battle royal on Sunday during the NOC pre show and that’s fine to drive traffic to the YouTube channel.
Fast paced action here with Cesaro and Miz vs Kofi and Truth.
Kofi pins Cesaro. None of these four guys in the match should have been pinned and thus I am unsure why the match took place. I guess it’s slightly better than Slotted Rhodes taking another loss.
WWE recaps Sheamus-Del Rio and emphasize Sheamus now using the Texas Cloverleaf. The overall story between Sheamus and Del Rio really hasn’t been that bad, but neither guy is really that over as a face and heel respectively.
Sheamus chatting with Bret. Gotta use the home country hero to get over the top babyfaces who WWE creative can’t get over as top babyfaces.
Three Hour Raw’s equal more anger management type segments and this time it’s with Otunga disposing Sheamus. We all know how WWE loves to write lawsuit driven storylines and unfortunately for Sheamus it might include him doing more horrible comedy.
This is terrible. The crowd is laughing at some of it and that must give Vince an erection, but I don’t think it’s the long term right move for the character. Sheamus is becoming John Cena junior. Its writers giving these guys comedy they can’t pull off, they try anyways and it has long term consequences. Brian Gewirtz, who has had his job wayyyyyyyyyyyy to long, had Rock do garbage material, but Rock had so much charisma, he got it over and since then he’s tried over and over and OVER again and failed. This is an infuriating segment and everything that is wrong with WWE. Sometimes you wonder if The Rock was a blessing and a curse all in one.
Asinine segment. If WWE is going to have Sheamus’s lawyer talk, they should make it be a character we know even if it is for us smart fans. Where’s Clarence Mason when you need him? This is a Vince McMahon style segment where he says it’s for everyone. There is legal verbiage in it, but the humor is for Vince and his ten year old sense of humor.
Good God, Sheamus kicks the camera and then starts singing. Vince McMahon ladies and gentleman, Vince McMahon...
Layla, Kaitlin and Eve are a team in some six diva tag match. I’m shocked they didn’t come out to Eve’s theme; it would actually make some storyline sense to do that.
Alicia Fox randomly a heel again? Sixteen writers
Maybe this Montreal crowd will drown this out with a “Nattie” chant.
More likely she takes the pin.
At least the right person took the pinfall loss.
The weird storyline of Eve kissing Eve and Kaitlyn’s ass continues. Who knows?
The divas match gets a graphic on Raw. You know it’s the go home show when...I’m surprised Eve isn’t officiating that match, although I could see them booking that when they rewrite the show ten times over on Sunday.
AJ in a backstage segment with Punk and in full power suit. AJ’s character turn is another example of Vince McMahon not having a clue anymore. She was getting over in her role as the underdog and the girl next door and now she’s the power suit, junior Stephanie.
Brodus arrives to say Hi to Punk and I assume that’s to keep him on television without having him on camera since Cameron is suspended.
Well maybe I am just as clueless as Vince, because Jerry Lawler didn’t come close to challenging Randy Orton and he only beat Brodus by 1%.
Michael Cole spouting off stats about the WWE Championship and Punk about to pass the reign of Superstar Billy Graham. Rare to hear Graham’s name mentioned on Raw and have a few sentence dedicated to him.
The crowd is split between Orton and Punk so once again the reaction to Punk at the beginning of the show was superficial.
Michael Cole tells us the story of CM Punk and Paul Heyman and Heyman being the reason Punk is in WWE. It’s too bad Punk and Heyman aren’t cutting a promo where they tell this story. Is Paul not allowed in Canada?
Orton takes most of the match and then Ziggler interferes for the DQ then Orton begins beating on Ziggler and the WWE Champion.
Punk and Ziggler finally get the better of Orton, but Lawler makes the save and gets the better of Punk. I hate that!
This is where you wish Punk had better judgement then to sell like this for Lawler. You gotta think he’s loving it, but it’s not the right call for his character seeing as he is the CHAMPION!
Back from commercial its Orton and Lawler vs Ziggler and Punk. Cole mentions that only one person hasn’t been successful cashing in MITB, but he doesn’t mention who. Whenever you hear Vince or Stephanie or someone say how Vince isn’t afraid of anything, remember how absolutely petrified he is of John Cena being seen as anything, but Super Man.
Weird finish to the match as Heyman comes out to talk to Punk and the camera never left their discussion as a match continued in the ring. I guess it was different from the usual WWE formula so that’s something.
Striker asks Punk and Heyman a stupid question backstage. Punk tells him he’s a “Heyman guy” and they exit stage left.
WWE wastes part of this three hour Raw replaying the Bryan-Kane hug off that they already replayed on Smackdown. This company...
Kane and Bryan backstage talking and I guess the anger has worn off from Kane choke slamming Bryan and Bryan hitting Kane with a CHAIR. This is what happens when your show is more about the writing than the physicality.
Slater and Ryback are apparently working a program as they show us the replay of Ryder beating Slater last week. Slater challenges Ryder again, but instead gets Ryback. They should of had Ryder put up the Internet Championship on the NOC pre show, which of course is on the Internet.
AJ lets the PTP know they are no longer the number one contenders, because WWE rewrote television this week and thought of the idea that I mentioned last week that they came up with a week too late. Sixteen writers, too many chefs in the kitchen. Anyways Bryan and Kane will be facing the PTP for the #1 contendership to the tag titles.
The Montreal crowd chanting Yes in French. Gotta love hot crowds!
Kane and Bryan vs Young and Titus have been far too long for my liking, probably because we are at the two hour mark.
Creative finish as Kane choke slams Bryan on to Young for the pin.
Kane then raises Bryan’s hand after the match. As I said last week, the odd couple tag team has been done to death, but these two have great chemistry. Let’s just hope WWE doesn’t ram it into the ground.
Del Rio beats Tyson Kidd with ease, although Tyson was allowed to put Del Rio in the sharp shooter momentarily.
Michael Cole lets us know something has happened to Jerry Lawler and I feel like my heart skipped about ten beats.
After hearing about Lawler, I decided to rush to the site to see what has happened. I see Michael Cole is still at ringside, but doesn’t appear to be doing commentary.
Good on Sheamus and Otunga for being able to keep it together during this stressful time.
AJ comes out as does Booker T who is randomly at Raw without any storyline reasoning. Remember when WWE choose to explain why AJ was at Smackdown? No explanation why Booker is on Raw.
Daniel Bryan and Kane backstage doing more comedy and one wonders how long Dr. Shelby will be around.
Cody just beats Rey clean for some reason, yet Rey will get the next title shot. Cody then swerves us by taking out Miz so Slotted Rhodes can once again vie for the IC belt.
The crowd in Montreal are no fans of John Cena and as always Cena allows the chants to shine through.
Punk planting seeds for feuds with everyone in this close out promo as he says he’s better than John, Shawn, Bret, Rock and Austin.
Punk cuts a damn good promo, Cena kisses up to Montreal and then buries the title by saying it’s been irrelevant since Punk got it.
Cena begins to cut that genuine Cena promo, but he tore down the Punk character quite a bit and calling the title irrelevant is just asinine, but is standard WWE, because Cena is above the title.
Punk tries to take a shot at Cena, Cena blocks it. Punk tries to take a shot at Bret, and Bret nails him. Punk is now the standard cowardly heel. You can’t teach an old dog, new tricks.
Nice close out segment, but overshadowed tonight are we.
Overall Thoughts
•No good and bad tonight. Good to hear Cole more upbeat talking about the King.
Feedback: revinsamuel@rogers.com
