411’s Instant Analysis 06.25.12: 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 beginning to really hope that, somehow, this whole ‘past authority figures act as Interim General Managers’ leads to William Regal taking over as GM again. His previous run in that position was amazing. The King of the Ring tournament that he stacked his favor was a good use of the concept and got over CM Punk as a midcard face even more. His weird, paranoid, demanding stuff with the crowd was genius. Remember when he stopped the show mid-main event because the people didn’t show him enough respect? One of the best endings to Raw ever. I assume he’ll get his chance during this gimmick and, odds are, he won’t take over permanently. At the very least, I’d like to see him threaten to shut the show down just for laughs. This week, though, it’s Vickie Guerrero, I believe? That could be fun. I guess we’ll see. Let’s get to it…

SEGMENT ONE: Three-Way Elimination Match – Daniel Bryan vs. Kane vs. CM Punk
Match Result: Daniel Bryan pinned CM Punk after CM Punk pinned Kane
Match Length: A little under ten and a half minutes

That cold open with AJ was interesting. The reveal wasn’t surprising. You knew it wouldn’t be the actual men she was talking to. I wasn’t thinking mirrors, I was thinking posters or action figures or something like that.

This was an interesting match to kick this week’s show off with, except it’s the same sort of match we’ve seen in variations for a long time. Even the finish was nothing more than a variation of something we’ve seen before. I was hoping for something more. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was some solid wrestling in this match. I liked something like CM Punk slingshotting Daniel Bryan into Kane who just got on the apron behind them — not an insane spot or something, but shows just how smoothly these three guys can run a match together. What made the finish particularly frustrating was not AJ doing the same thing as last week, it’s that the whole elimination stipulation seemed to promise something better than a quick, bullshit win. It felt anticlimactic more than anything.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT TWO: The Big Show vs. Brodus Clay
Match Result: The Big Show pinned Brodus Clay
Match Length: Two and a half minutes

Part of me didn’t like this because Brodus Clay has now been undercut after months of dominance. But, come on, he was a comedy feel good character. He won only because no one wants to see a fat loser dance. Another part of me didn’t like this because something about the Big Show working a body part seems off to me. It seems stylistically at odds with his character. The Big Show doesn’t work over body parts, he just beats people into the ground. A smaller opponent would work the leg in an effort to beat Brodus Clay. It’s almost like working it makes the Big Show seem less physically dominant. It makes him look weak.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

SEGMENT THREE: United States Championship Match – Santino Marella (C) vs. Jack Swagger
Match Result: Santino pinned Jack Swagger
Match Length: Two minutes, 40 seconds

That I’m a Jack Swagger fan is no secret, so you can probably guess my reaction to this match. I would have loved to see it end with Swagger faking Santino out at the beginning and winning the title back to become the Two-Time Two-Time All American American United States Champion. Not just because I’m a Swagger fan, but because it would be fitting for Santino to lose the title through a lame joke gag like the shaking hands fake-out. Instead, it was your typical Santino match: the other guy shows off that he’s better in the ring until Santino wins. Yippie.

Rating: 5.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FOUR: John Cena Makes History and Chris Jericho Rightly Scoffs

The sheer speed with which John Cena rhymed off those Star Wars/WWE name mash-ups was impressive. It was obviously heavily rehearsed to get it right, but it was still entertaining. Not as entertaining as watching John Cena crack himself up. The return of Chris Jericho was lovely. His overly serious character plays well off of John Cena when he’s being kind of goofy. Cena announcing that he will be in one of the Money in the Bank matches wasn’t making history really and having Jericho undercut Cena’s announcement was a subtle recognition by the WWE that, yeah, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m not sure about the idea that only former WWE Champions can participate — hopefully, if they’re doing that, they’ll make the World Heavyweight Championship MitB match for guys who have NEVER held a world title. That could make for an interesting mix of guys. Really, the draw of this segment was the interplay of Jericho and Cena, which is always entertaining.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

SEGMENT FIVE: Sycho Sid vs. Heath Slater
Match Result: Sycho Sid pinned Heath Slater
Match Length: A minute and a half

Sid didn’t look too bad, but you could see the rough edges here and there, making the choice to keep this short a smart one. I guess it’s a vote of confidence by management that Heath Slater has been chosen to be in all of segments featuring returning talent. Then again, it could be the universal loathing of Slater and wanting to guarantee that every returning talent gets a positive reaction. I’m not sure anyone else would guarantee that as well as Slater save David Otunga, but, up until this week, he was part of the John Laurinaitis story. Anyway… fun little segment with a thankfully brief bout.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SIX: #1 Contender Match for the World Heavyweight Championship Contract on a Pole Match – Alberto Del Rio vs. Dolph Ziggler
Match Result: Sheamus ended the match by going “Alright, alright, I’ll fight you both…”
Match Length: A little under five minutes

This was ridiculous fun. Just a mad scramble that played up the innate stupidity of pole matches. Unlike ladder matches, winning here only required keeping your opponent down for a very brief time, leading both men taking every opportunity to attempt grabbing the contract on the pole. So, it was nothing but mad dashes and big bumps, which both men are quite adept at. The inability for either man to ‘control’ the contract took things to another level of insanity. There really couldn’t be any other finish than Sheamus mocking them, saying that the match will be a triple threat, and then promising to kick their asses arses. One of those times where playing up the absurdity really paid off in a fun, entertaining way.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SEVEN: Divas Summertime Beach Battle Royal
Match Result: AJ won by eliminating Vickie Guerrero

The early moments of this match demonstrated two things: 1. Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler are awful, because they couldn’t seem to name any Divas. 2. The WWE has effectively made no one care about the Divas because I’m not sure anyone could have named the Divas as they were eliminated. This was what it was and AJ got to win… so yay…?

Rating: 4.0 out of 10

SEGMENT EIGHT: John Cena vs. Chris Jericho
Match Result: John Cena won via disqualification
Match Length: A little over eight and a half minutes

An entertaining main event that had a stupid finish. Like their promo work, Jericho and Cena work well together in the ring, falling into a nice rhythm where Jericho usually makes Cena look better than most opponents do. He plays the cowardly/cheap heel well, making Cena into more of a cheated hero figure, which then makes Cena’s eventual comeback not seem as grating as it does elsewhere. The finish basically relies on you caring about a Cena/Big Show feud, which I don’t. In fact, continuing it only makes the Big Show’s decision to walk out on John Laurinaitis last week seem strange because, if he and Cena are still feuding, wouldn’t he take advantage of a three-on-one situation to beat up Cena? Oh wait, I’m remembering what happened last week when the WWE hasn’t pointed it out, I must be overthinking things. No room for that in wrestling. I’ll stop now…

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

FINAL THOUGHTS Segment of the Night: The Contract on a Pole Match Trash Segment of the Night: The Divas Battle Royal Final Analysis: A rather middling episode of Raw. Nothing too good, nothing too bad. Pretty average. I can live with that, because there’s some pleasure in watching a show that delivers some nice bits without anything that makes you begin to shout at the TV because you can’t believe how stupid they are. Even the best episodes of Raw tend to have one of those moments and nothing like that stood out here. Sadly, that’s an accomplishment these days. Congrats, WWE, you managed to not do something completely stupid this week. Next week, keep it up and maybe do something amazing. Verdict: 6.0 411 RATINGS SCALE: 0 – 0.9: Torture 1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous 2 – 2.9: Very Bad 3 – 3.9: Bad 4 – 4.9: Poor 5 – 5.9: Not So Good 6 – 6.9: Average 7 – 7.9: Good 8 – 8.9: Very Good 9 – 9.9: Amazing 10: Virtually Perfect

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On the latest edition of the 411 on Wrestling Podcast, 411’s Larry Csonka was joined by Andy Critchell to discuss the latest edition of WWE Monday Night Raw. From there, discussion of the ROH iPPV, the WWE’s lack of building stars and properly utilizing the roster they have, the current momentum that TNA has, reasons why the ROH product feels stagnant and more!

You can listen to the show here.

Or, you can download the episode at this link.

Listen to internet radio with Larry Csonka on Blog Talk Radio

You can also listen to past episodes here.

Past episodes are available via iTunes here.

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