411’s Instant Analysis 06.18.12: WWE Monday Night Raw

Welcome to this week’s Instant Analysis of Monday Night Raw. I’m your humble reviewer, Chad Nevett and I’m back after missing last week while out of town. I did catch the final hour of Raw last week and that seemed like enough. I did enjoy seeing Vader squash Zack Ryder — so much so that I watched the ‘King of Cable’ match that he had with Sting at Starrcade 1992. A great big man/little man match. I love the beginning where Vader looks so dominant simply because he doesn’t seem to care about destroying Sting. Great psychology. Anyway… John Laurinaitis will bid us farewell tonight and Brock Lesnar’s people will respond to Triple H. And probably some other stuff, too. Let’s get to it…

SEGMENT ONE: Meet the New (Temporary) Boss

This was a fun but pretty stupid way to open the show. Basically, Mick Foley is in charge of Raw and Smackdown this week and… John Laurinaitis came out only to announce that he’ll say farewell later. Because if there’s something I know everyone wants teased out over the course of the evening, it’s Big Johnny’s goodbye. Mostly, this seemed like a segment aimed more at the live audience than those of us watching at home — a tactic that varies for many. Me, I’m not as big a fan. I would have preferred this segment to actually… do something…? Is that somehow not allowed?

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

SEGMENT TWO: CM Punk & Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan & Kane
Match Result: Sheamus pinned Daniel Bryan
Match Length: Around 14 and a half minutes

As Ryan and Larry pointed out on Twitter, this would have once been a giant match instead of a throwaway match no one will remember next week — which has nothing to do with quality, merely that the WWE just tosses big names together on television with no regard for the fact that it makes possible big matches feel mundane. And this was a good tag match. Both teams worked well together, it wasn’t a match that was all heels beating up on the faces, and the finish was story-based enough to make the loss not hurt anyone. The AJ stuff is going over big time with a lot of people and it’s entertaining, but I’m waiting for some payoff, unsure if we’ll ever get any or if this whole thing will just fizzle out eventually. But, her skipping around the ring in a Kane outfit was pretty funny. The WWE could definitely find worse ways to spend their quarter-hours.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

SEGMENT THREE: Dolph Ziggler vs. Jack Swagger
Match Result: Dolph Ziggler pinned Jack Swagger
Match Length: A little over four minutes

I really liked this match up until the finish. The use of amateur wrestling tactics, something both have experience in but Jack Swagger is more known for, and how Dolph Ziggler got the upper hand early on using amateur techniques. As has been said many times before, Ziggler is a bump machine and sold very, very well. However, I think he oversold to a degree, because it went on a bit too much with working on the leg and the ankle to the point where Swagger losing seemed a little hard to swallow. It was a bit of a strange way to construct a match like this where, after that initial bit of sparring, Swagger destroyed Ziggler and Ziggler managed to pull out a ‘one move’ win. That’s usually the way underdog face matches are composed (see Rey Mysterio’s World Heavyweight Title reign). Yet, by keeping Ziggler with Vickie Guerrero, I can’t imagine turning him face. It’s a bit of contradictory booking. I guess I would have liked to see something a little more even, a little more back and forth, not Ziggler getting beaten down and his leg looking like it was about to be ripped right off before hitting one move for the win.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FOUR: A Battle of Wits

Goddamn, that was good up until that finish. Leading up to Triple H hitting Paul Heyman, there was a wonderful build from Heyman being as brief and to-the-point as possible in responding to Triple H challenging Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam to Triple H’s response where he tried to appease to Lesnar’s ego by both making him the star and questioning his bravery. Then, things took a surprising twist with the way that Heyman broke down Triple H and showed that he was saying a lot of rather clich