Almost 24 hours after Raw went on the air live from Indianapolis, I finally was able to sit down and watch it. From plane delays to car service incompetence, it was quite the journey back to rainy New York, and none of it was made easier by my Raw withdrawals. I don't do well with missing Raw and have been itching to watch it all day. I can't tell you how many times I was tempted to read the results, especially when I see titles like "first Money in the Bank Qualifier revealed on Raw" and "Michaels to address his actions, Undertaker to be at Raw?" The hype was certainly there, and every little hint got me so excited for this edition of Raw. Unfortunately, like most things in life, when the hype is very high, it's quite difficult to live up to that hype. That's basically how I felt after watching this edition of Raw.
One thing that WWE fans can always count on around this time of year is the brandsplit being non existent. Proof of this was the show opening up with the man who got kicked off of Raw and vowed never to come back, Chris Jericho. Of course, this Chris Jericho was different than the one we saw humiliated the last time on Raw. Actually, this Chris Jericho reminded me of his old persona at certain points of his promo. I suppose it makes sense, given that he now possesses the World Heavyweight Championship. I mean, the guy pinned the Undertaker and took his title (of course HBK might have had something to do with that.....). Just as this Jericho was hitting his bragging peak, Edge's music hit and Edge emerged from behind, speared Jericho, grabbed his mic and told Jericho he'd be going to Wrestlemania to face him. And just like that, the first official Wrestlemania match was announced. Kind of a short segment and it seemed quite anticlimactic in execution, but then again, ever since Edge got hurt and Jericho started bashing him, many fans figured this match would happen. It's interesting that it'll be for the title, but I have to imagine that Edge emerges victorious as a new crowd favorite. He just might want to get a new nickname because the Rated-R Superstar doesn't make a whole lot of sense on a TV-PG show.
Bucking the trend of a normal Raw broadcast, that promo segment was followed by another promo segment. This one was started by John Cena who is obviously not happy after having survived the Elimination Chamber to become WWE Champion, only to lose it minutes later to Vince's boy, Batista. I liked how Cena's first line likened him to Bret Hart and getting screwed. The reminds fans of Bret even though he's injured at home, and it puts over Vince as a bad man. This budding rivalry between Cena and Vince might be just the thing Cena needs to please the fans that have turned on him for being "stale" and "too invincible". Perhaps a little humility and battling with the boss would show fans that he has a little Austin in him as well as some Hogan.
As for the actual promo, it made sense, but Vince's part did not. Cena wants his rematch clause but Batista won't defend the title until Wrestlemania, so if Cena wants a shot, it's between him and Sheamus who also has a rematch clause. Of course, since Sheamus wasn't at Raw (he has a concussion but obviously it's not being acknowledged), Cena had to face Batista and beat him in order to face.........Batista? I was pissed when I saw this because I was afraid the two men would give away too much and make the Wrestlemania match inconsequential. I'll talk more about that match later, but the question I have now is, could the WWE not wait until next week for Sheamus to face Cena for the spot? It's obvious this was a last minute switch and Cena would have faced Sheamus tonight, but it was changed due to his injury. I have to assume that Sheamus' concussion is bad enough where they won't want him in active competition for a few weeks, thus pulling the trigger on Cena's match with Batista. I figure Sheamus will come back and complain that he didn't even get a shot to be in the main event and they will try and run with that. It might be cool if that complaint led to Triple H telling him that he didn't get a chance either but he's not complaining. The kid has been around a few months and he expects big time main events to be handed to him? This could be build for HHH vs. Sheamus at 'Mania with a storyline of HHH making the young guy learn to earn things and not just expect him.
We finally got the first match of the night, and it was a nightmare. I've been tough on the Divas lately, and for good reason. This match only makes matters worse. The worst wrestler on the brand other than the Bellas who really don't wrestle is now the champion AGAIN. I can't tell you how disappointing this is to me. I understand that Maryse has the nasty character down, but that's all she has. She hasn't looked that great recently and her wrestling is very poor. I'd rather have Alicia Fox or Katie Lea as a heel champion. Poor Gail Kim though. Very good wrestler, but treated like crap. It's a shame that Maryse is the champion. I might have to take my pee break during her matches from now on.
Before the show could get better, it had to get worse, with a backstage segment ending with host Jewel slapping Jillian Hall for butchering one of her songs. That gimmick has run its course and I honestly just find it annoying. Adding insult to injury, the face divas in the segment will be in a bull riding competition later in the show. I think I'd rather see a hornswoggle match.
Back to relevant topics, the next segment was fantastic. It started with Cody explaining to Orton how the lead pipe he threw in was for him to use, not for Ted to use on Randy. Orton proceeds to blame himself for teaching the young Legacy team too well and tells Cody to pass along to Ted that he's sorry. After Orton left, Ted came in and asked how it went and he and Cody discuss sticking to "the plan" and decide that they will. It's clear that the Legacy tag team bond is stronger than that to their mentor. I think this is absolutely perfect as neither Ted or Cody are ready to get a rub from Orton as an individual, but the duo ganging up on their mentor....perfect!
The promo was followed by a match that Orton asked for, putting Legacy against Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne, and Raw's newest supertsar, Yoshi Tatsu. Decent match and pretty good exposure for Tatsu, but the match was done to further the Legacy story, and that's exactly what happened, albeit not the way Rhodes and Dibiase planned. The match ended when Cody tagged himself in, which angered Orton, and he DDT'd him from the second rope. This led to Air Bourne and the faces getting the win. While that was happening, Dibiase got in Orton face and asked what he was thinking, only for Orton to snap and RKO him on the outside. I think this played out perfectly as it confirms that Orton should be the heel in all this and it'll be a struggle for the young guns to finally get the best of their mentor. I love where this is heading and it's turning into one of the best stories in wrestling right now.
If there's one thing the WWE does consistently well, it's put together video packages hyping different stories and feuds. The video that aired hyping the Shawn Michaels/Undertaker saga was quite long, but it might have been the best video I've ever seen in that capacity. I have included this promo video at the bottom of this article for your enjoyment....it really was that good. Following the video, Shawn explained his actions from the chamber, Undertaker came out and accepted Shawn's challenge for a match, but made Shawn up the stakes and put his career on the line. This makes the match career vs. streak, to which Shawn claimed "if I don't beat you at Wrestlemania, I have no career. You're on". We now have 2 confirmed matches for Wrestlemania, though they were probably the two most obvious. However, both matches should be fun to watch if nothing else. I hope the build for them supercedes the matches themselves and the WWE needs a really good build to Wrestlemania and a good show on March 28th to set a high bar for the up and coming TNA to try and reach if they want to compete.
After an intense segment came a match that also contained Wrestlemania implications as it was the first Money in the Bank qualifying match. I guess they decided to keep the match on the card even with the new "Money in the Bank" Pay Per View on the calender mere months from Wrestlemania. I wonder how that will play out. I certainly hope there wont' be 2 briefcases running around. As for the match, it was short and Christian got the victory over Carlito, because honestly, Carlito getting on the Wrestlemania card over Christian? Pretty sure it wasn't going to happen, but I am excited about Christian getting in the match. I hope he wins it as I, along with many in the WWE universe are ready for a Christian title reign.
If the Divas title match wasn't the worst part of the show, the next segment featuring Divas riding bulls certainly was. Each diva stayed on the bull, which didn't seem hard to stay on at all, I'm not sure why anyone would want to see these girls do something so simple. Perhaps I just don't get the whole bull riding thing as I'm a New Yorker where the only bull we have is the stuff that comes out of everyone's mouth trying to get a leg up on someone else. I suppose I have to accept that some shows will be hosted by southerners and will feature Nascar, country music, and bull riding. Boy is it a different world down there.
The segment was interrupted by ShoMiz who call out the segment for being stupid but proceed to make it worse with Big Show doing his best Happy Gilmore impression by taking a swing at the bull after he fell off. The anger in Show led to Jewel making ShoMiz defend their Unified Tag Titles against HenVP. I'm fine with making that match, but this was a horrible segment to do and it's not making anyone take ShoMiz seriously at all. Also, Miz mentions the Unified Tag belts, but doesn't really mention the U.S. belt anymore. I don't think that's a good thing as the fans need to remember that Miz is a double champion.
The match itself was nothing special and saw ShoMiz retain after Big Show hit his knockout punch on Mark Henry. This is probably good, since most of the feud is focused on Miz and MVP, so it's good to see the other two have an actual impact on a match result other than interference.
This week's Hall of Fame announcement was for Wendi Richter, who's biggest claim to fame was her partnership with Cindi Lauper. From what I've seen, that pairing was pretty big in the mid 80s and the women's title was big back then and she was a big part of it. Roddy Piper will induct her, but why not Lauper. Heck, she just did the celebrity apprentice with WWE Diva, Maria, so why not cross promote? It would seem a perfect opportunity to reach out and bring back the singer. Piper will do a great job, no doubt, but I just think it would have made sense to have the inductor be the person that made the inductee famous.
For those that didn't catch Smackdown, Raw gave an update on Bret Hart, followed by Vince inviting Bret back to Raw next week for a proper goodbye because the way he got hurt and went out wasn't fair. I think we all know that Bret will come back only to be humiliated again. As much as I've been defending this storyline and think the match will get a great moment of Bret finally locking the Sharpshooter in on McMahon, the story was started too soon and has been very cyclical. Essentially nothing has progressed in almost 2 months, and a story that could have been gold is lucky to be nickel.
The main event of the night was Cena vs. Batista.............sort of. First off, why is it when guys turn heel, they grow beards? It's either a beard or sunglasses. Perhaps these performers should rely on, oh I don't know, developing their characters to get over as heels instead of simple facial changes. Anyway, the match was basically much ado about nothing, as Batista got disqualified for a low blow early. He then proceeded to beat down Cena for the rest of the show and walk out proud of his work. What I don't get is that it happened for a good 10 minutes and nobody came out to help Cena. This is the biggest face in the company and nobody helped him? Surely even an Evan Bourne could have come out to help to at least show that people like Cena. The segment was way too long and was sort of painful to watch in the sense that you felt bad that Cena was all alone. With that said, Batista is doing an oddly good job with his heel turn and I'm more intrigued with his character than I ever was in the past few years. With the DQ, a third Wrestlemania match was set with Cena and Batista facing off for the WWE title. Only done once before, this should be a money making match, albeit one that wont' feature "5 star wrestling" according to most fans. I actually think they'll do a nice job against each other with one a face and one a heel now, and I hope McMahon screws Cena to continue their feud. The potential of that feud is something I can't mention enough.
Overall, it was a mixed Raw. It certainly didn't meet my expectations due to some really low points of the show, but the segments that actually directly affected Wrestlemania were pretty good. Weird question, but where was Triple H? Since when does he miss a Raw? I hope there's a really good explanation for this. Anyway, a pretty good Raw except for the host segments. As much as they are likeable people, the "celebrity couple" were not good hosts, though I'd argue that this time of year, hosts need to have a minimal impact as the show needs to be driven by Wrestlemania feuds. This show mostly did that and hopefully that trend will continue. Look for my review of the first ever NXT tomorrow, but for now, enjoy the epic HBK/Undertaker promo!
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