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LOOKING AT THE GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THIS WEEK'S RAW

Note: I was moving this past weekend so I didn’t have time to do a Smackdown report. I did watch the first half of the show and even though Daniel Bryan and Kane go against the fundamentals of pro wrestling, the chemistry works for me. I also loved the involvement of Edge.
RAW - 24/09/2012            E: revinsamuel@rogers.com
What this show needs to accomplish?
•Five weeks till HITC. That’s still probably too much time for WWE so it’s likely another show with no pay per view promotion, but perhaps they’ll surprise me and kick it into gear
•John Cena is injured. Naturally Cena will be on the show, because no fear McMahon doesn’t know how to do storylines without Super Man. It will be interesting to see how they tell the story of Cena and Punk with Cena hurt. My hope is that they don’t play touch and go with Cena and just give him a pay per view off like they did last December at TLC
•Speaking of CM Punk. The involvement of Paul Heyman has been nice, but they really haven’t leveraged Heyman too much and I’d like to see them take advantage of him more in this pairing
•Continue to make the undercard mean something. There’s a story with Eve. There’s a story with the PTP-Rey and Sin Cara. There’s a nice story with Bryan and Kane. Ziggler has something going. Keep these things relevant and compelling so the audience begins to care, because for the most part they don’t right now
•What’s next for Sheamus? Please cut out the comedy
•What’s next for Alberto?
Show Breakdown   

1. Show starts with the standard “hold the show hostage” angle.

2. Luckily Heyman and Punk are talented enough to make this work. Just as AJ comes out, I was going to say it’s illogical for this not to involve AJ, even though I’d rather they not involve her, because it doesn’t play to her strengths to be in this story.

3. Punk doing amazing stuff here with AJ, I just hope it doesn’t lead to her emasculating him, which the way Punk went after her, it almost has to.

4. Heyman weirdly proposes to AJ and the best part of this is Punk’s expressions in the background.

5. AJ slaps Heyman and exits as Cole says AJ stands her ground...not really, but at least she didn’t emasculate the champion.

6. WWE oddly shows a graphic of Lawler on a stretcher getting chest compressions. Typical Vince, everything ends up fine so he exploits it. Actually even if it didn’t end up fine, he’d exploit it

7. Ziggler and Vickie out for another Dolph-Kofi match.

8. Vickie and Truth get tossed from ringside and that’s probably for the better in terms of match quality

9. JR is such a gem on commentary. He adds a great sports aspect. I’m very surprised Vince is allowing this.

10. Great fast paced action with Kofi and Dolph. You can tell these two love working with each other.

11. JR more great detail on commentary as he notes the officials being more careful since last week’s incident.

12. Ziggler gets a solid win after some great near falls.

13. You know when WWE is recapping a Kane-Sandow match from Smackdown that the bubble is definitely invested in Bryan and Kane.

14. We see Daniel Bryan and Kane at a restaurant and this was stupid. Moving on...

15. The PTP beat Santino and Ryder, I blinked and it was gone. I’m surprised Santino took the pinfall. Ross again emphasizing the officials being extra cautious.

16. More creepy photos of Lawler...

17. Mick Foley arrives with a commercial in-between to hype it up. These legends could mean something if WWE gave them a chance.

18. Foley is in serious mode and it looks like we’re going to get a potential great promo segment with Punk and Foley.

19. Foley clearly playing the representative for McMahon in this segment as the focus is on Heyman and the Kool-Aid

20. Punk still saying “they turned on me” and I get that he’s a heel so even though that never happened were supposed to suspend disbelief, but it would work alot better if the crowd still wasn’t chanting his name and giving John Cena a mix reaction. I guess Vince still thinks it’s 1986.

21. Foley gets to cut one of his serious, intense promo and Punk is left without words. It was good, but not great in my view.

22. The Miz and Ryback with no hype. Writing on the fly. This company...

23. Ryback squashes the IC Champion. This makes absolutely no sense to me. This f’n company. If you are going to squash the guy at least put the title on the line. Sixteen writers, a bubble who wants to be making movies. Infuriating. Vince, head in the toilet, FLUSH.

24. Oh and speak of the devil, it’s the movie segment as Bryan and Kane eating at the restaurant.

25. AJ backstage as the babyface GM’s continue to screw with Alberto.

26. Wade Barrett vs Tyson Kidd. I still don’t get what Kevin Dunn and company are thinking with Wade Barrett’s theme song, but hey this is the same company that has Kevin Rudolph as their theme song for every pay per view

27. Barrett beats Tyson; shockingly this was given a tad bit of time.

28. Jerry Lawler via satellite and that was good stuff.

29. Cara, Rey and Sheamus win and I’m not sure what the point of this was. At least Ricardo took the pinfall.

30. More with Kane and Bryan. Kane burps, Bryan pukes. Vince McMahon has an erection.

31. Kane and Bryan out and there tag team name is HellNo. Cody and Sandow attack them randomly and they are a new tag team. Yup, this show is written on the fly.

32. Raw has been pretty subpar since the Ziggler-Kofi match.

33. Diva action as cutie Layla, love the hoody and Alicia Fox who switches from heel to babyface from show to show take on Eve Torres and the soon to be retiring Beth Phoenix. BTW, I’m calling Beth pulls the Victoria and fires off to TNA.

34. Short and sweet, which is good.

35. Kaitlyn out with that terrible music. Her and Wade Barrett should form a duo.

36. Oh the swerve...Kaitlyn tells us it was a blonde who took her out and so Eve lays out Beth. The story isn’t that bad, but the audience doesn’t invest themselves into diva storylines because WWE doesn’t.

37. Tensai vs Brodus Clay and Sakamoto is gone without a word.

38. Big Show comes out and something tells me WWE isn’t thinking long term with what’s about to happen here.

39. Brodus runs right at Big Show, because he’s a stupid babyface. This company...

40. Cena out cutting another promo where he embraces the hate. Fake and transparent, this is why Cena isn’t over with the masses. Your audience doesn’t fall for perfection Vince!

41. Cena makes another PG joke, because he understands the business.

42. I’m watching this promo segment with Punk and Cena and how is Punk not the babyface? He tells the truth. WWE scripts him to say that Cena is pandering so they clearly know it’s not good verbiage yet they still have Cena say it. This company...

43. Cena gets the last laugh on Punk and at least he had to use a weapon and didn’t beat Punk up with one arm.

44. Ryback randomly shows up backstage at the end to confront Punk after he takes a shot at foley. I guess that explains why he squashed Miz.