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411’s Instant Analysis 07.19.2010: WWE Monday Night Raw

July 19, 2010 | Posted by Ryan Byers

WILLKOMMEN!

Welcome kids to a little fun we’re going to have here at 411. The Instant Analysis column is the companion piece to 411 Live Pay-Per-View Coverage and features immediate reaction to wrestling pay-per-views. The focus in Instant Analysis is on first thoughts and initial reactions instead of play-by-play, with the goal of providing you with instant access to writers’ thoughts on the show. We have decided to give these a try for some of the TV shows, so lets see how things work out . . .

SEGMENT ONE
Edge vs. Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho in a number one contenders match
Match Result: Randy Orton pins Edge with the RKO after also taking out Jericho.
Match Length: Approximately fifteen minutes.
Match Analysis: Wow, it certainly feels odd for this show to start off with a match . . . I think this is the first time that’s happened in the month-plus that I’ve been writing this column. And what a match it was, too! This was one of the best Raw matches in recent memory, full of non-stop action and every guy hitting all of his trademark spots to set up some fairly intense nearfalls. A hot, hot crowd helped things along significantly, though the real highlight of the bout for me was Chris Jericho, out of nowhere, busting out the good old POOOUUUUUUUUNCE (period) to cut off an Edge offensive onslaught. Another great part of the match was the fact that this match was meant to set up a number one contender for the promotion’s second most important pay per view event of the year, and the winner was put over as strongly as humanly possible. Orton didn’t just pin Edge clean in the middle of the ring with his move, but he also laid out Jericho with the very same move seconds beforehand, definitively proving that he could have beaten either man. It was a great contrast to the unfortunate situation we see all too often in wrestling these days, in which a guy wins a title shot via run-in or other flukey means and the clueless promoters wonder why the challenger is incapable of drawing on pay per view. Thumbs way up for this one, as it wasn’t quite at pay per view main event level but was excellent by free television standards.
Rating: ***1/2

SEGMENT TWO
Canadian Violence
Analysis: As we come back from commercial, Edge is in the ring ranting and raving at Jericho and claiming that they need to end the issue between them that has been ongoing for “eleven years.” I must have missed about ten years and a half years of that one. Anyway, Jericho is out, and they two do a pretty decent job of running one another down on the mic, though Y2J sends things in an interesting direction when he threatens Edge with the prospect of a Nexus beatdown. Nexus, according to Jericho, will do his bidding because he created Wade Barrett, who in turn created the stable. Edge disagrees and thinks Gang Green would want to kick the snot out of Jericho for constantly taking credit for their success. It turns out that BOTH guys were right, because here’s Nexus to take them both out, one at a time. The big spot was Skip Sheffield hitting a spear on Edge which quite literally looked better than 99.9% of the spears that Edge has executed during his career. (The .01% consists of the first spear that he hit on Jeff Hardy when he first added the move to his lineup.) This was another top-notch segment to follow up on a very good match, with Jericho and Edge whipping the crowd into a frenzy with their respective promos and Barrett more than holding his own. The beatdown itself wasn’t that much different than the other Nexus attacks that we have seen over the course of the last several weeks, but I like the fact that the group is now showing more aggression towards WWE’s heels, because it furthers the aspect of the storyline in which it is necessary for boht sides of the locker room to team up in order to take on this new threat. Bravo to everybody who was involved in this one.
Rating: ***

SEGMENT THREE
Eve Torres vs. Maryse Ouellet in a number one contenders match
Match Result: Torres pins Ouellet.
Match Length: One minute.
Match Analysis: Ted DiBiase, Jr. on commentary during one of Maryse’s matches is nowhere near as awesome on Maryse on commentary for one of Ted Jr.’s matches. Anyway, Eve pins Maryse in a minute, but Maryse’s foot was on the bottom rope before the ref counted three. DiBiase tries to point this out to the official, and, out of nowhere, John Morrison attacks Teddy and puts him into position for Starship Pain. This was not a good night for Mr. Morrison, though, as he over shot the move pretty badly and only his pony tail made contact with Ted on the way down. This was bad on just about every level. The match was nothing to write home about, Ted’s announcing was poor, and the booking was completely ass-backwards. The heels were the ones screwed over by a bad call from the referee, and, when they tried to point out their legitimate gripe, they were blindsided by a sneak attack carried out by a babyface. It’s almost as if they were TRYING to build up sympathy for DiBiase and Maryse. This was so poorly thought out that, for a fleeting second, I thought I had been reassigned to reviewing TNA Impact.
Rating: -*

SEGMENT FOUR
Shea-Miz
Analysis: Sheamus is out for his weekly good promo, where he gloats about beating John Cena for the third time at last night’s pay per view and goes on to announce that, coming out of an earlier backstage skit, he has negotiated a truce with Nexus based on the fact that they’re similarly situated in that both were recently unknown commodities who managed to work hard and establish themselves. Out of the blue, the champ is interrupted by Mike the Miz, who runs down all of the various possibilities regarding his cashing in on his Money in the Bank title shot. Miz’s claim is that he’ll be watching Sheamus everywhere he goes, and he winds up quoting The Police in order to drive the point home. Well, I don’t know if the intention was to turn Miz face, but that line certainly did the trick in my book. Sheamus blows Miz off and gets ready to walk away, but Michael Cole’s ding books an impromptu match between the champion and Evan Bourne. The dueling promos from Sheamus and Miz didn’t get that much of a crowd reaction because of the heel/heel dynamic, but both guys turned in solid performances that established their characters well, in addition to the fact that Miz now has a championship match whenever he darn well pleases.
Rating: **1/2

SEGMENT FIVE
Sheamus vs. Evan Bourne
Match Result: Sheamus pins Bourne with the axe kick.
Match Length: Roughly ten minutes.
Match Analysis: In an uncharacteristic bit of attention to detail, Bourne takes a long time to show up for his entrance and is taping up as he walks out to the ring, putting over the storyline point regarding the match being put together on the fly. These two have been in the ring together a lot, and they’ve always appeared to have good chemistry, though generally their bouts have been squashes or tags. This match ran significantly longer, and the two continued to prove that they work well with one another, as Sheamus dominated and they timed Bourne’s comebacks perfectly before doing a finish in which the champion still won clean but Bourne was just distracted enough between the referee getting into his face and accidentally bonking his head into a video camera that he wasn’t completely buried. We’re two for two in terms of good matches this evening.
Rating: ***

SEGMENT SIX
Money in the Blank
Analysis: Miz, who remained at ringside for the entire Evan Bourne/Sheamus match, jumps the champion after the bell and gives him the stroke down onto the briefcase. They did a great job with that spot and Sheamus fighting the full application of the hold before it was ultimately locked in. Miz indicated that he was cashing in his title shot, but the referee refused to ring the bell because Sheamus was already unconscious. Miz looked on, waiting for the official to ring the bell, but then none other than R-Truth ran in for the save. The rapper rings Miz’s bell and runs him off, with the announcers explaining that Miz still has his title shot because the bell never sounded to begin the “match.” I liked how this played out. Though I was a fan of Miz winning Money in the Bank, I don’t think that he’s quite at the level yet where he could sustain a championship reign, and he should carry the case for several months and win several feuds in that time before he has a legitimate chance at the belt. If you give the guy a title too soon, nobody will take him or his reign seriously, which hurts him more long-term than it does help him. (See Swagger, Jack.) This segment did a fine job of establishing that he COULD cash in at any point, while the distraction from R-Truth gives him a solid storyline reason for not cashing in now for for some time in the future while he deals with the rapper. Plus, as we learned in a backstage segment, Miz’s finisher on to a briefcase is the only thing capable of flattening Sheamus’ flattop hairstyle.
Rating: ***

SEGMENT SEVEN
Santino Marella & Vladimir Kozlov vs. William Regal & Zach Ryder
Match Result: Santino pins Ryder.
Match Length: Three minutes . . . did I just say three minutes?
Match Analysis: Santino is in first and he is completely ineffective, including a spot in which he attempts Tajiri’s handspring elbow but gets tripped by Zach Ryder in mid-move. When Zach Ryder is tripping you up, you know you’re a goofball. Kozlov tags in, Kozlov dominates both of his opponents, and he’s nice enough to let his little buddy Santino get the pinfall. Aside from the Santino stuff early on, this was a pretty straight (albeit brief) professional wrestling match, and the result was one of the least painful segments of this entire feud. Of course, now the question becomes where they go from here . . . are we really going to see Santino and Kozlov built up to the point that they get a Tag Team Title shot?
Rating: *3/4

SEGMENT EIGHT
Wade Barrett vs. Mark Henry
Match Result: Barrett pins Henry.
Match Length: Three minutes. Did I just say . . . oh, forget it.
Match Analysis: The announcers did a good job of hyping this as our first opportunity to see what Barrett could accomplish on his own, because the mystery general manager had banned Nexus from appearing at “ringside.” This was a very slow paced, milquetoast match until the finish, where Mark Henry was distracted by Nexus, who appeared on the entrance ramp but not at ringside. Between this and the “Legend” versus “Superstar” distinction from a couple of weeks back, and I’m getting the feeling that these guys really love playing games with semantics. Anyway, Henry was on the ropes at the time of the distraction, and Wade was able to hit him with a running boot before grabbing him off the ropes and hitting his fireman’s carry slam. Barrett came VERY close to losing Henry there and even closer to falling and landing flat on his head, but he just barely saved it and the result was probably the most devastating looking version of his weak, weak finishing hold that we’ve seen to date. This was booked fairly well and accomplished what it needed to accomplish in terms of putting Barrett over, but it wasn’t that great of a match from a technical perspective.
Rating: *

SEGMENT NINE
If you can’t beat ’em . . .
Analysis: Barrett and company remain in the ring after the match and call out Cena, who, earlier in the show, claimed that he wanted to speak with Nexus and finished his promo with “If you can’t beat them . . .” teasing, of course, that he would join forces with Gang Green. Nexus promises that they’ll hear Cena out and not kill him. Why would Cena be afraid of a Nexus beatdown at this point? He’s taken approximately seventeen of them and never once shown any ill effects on the next show. There is some generic banter, and, just as you would expect, Cena teases joining Nexus and walking away from them without a fight but ultimately does neither. Instead, he announces that he’s rounded up a team of wrestlers that will work together to take out Nexus at Summerslam, presumably in a tag match, though that was never stated directly. The team consists of Edge (Makes sense); John Morrison (I guess justifying his Muscle and Fitness cover); R-Truth (Okay); The Great Khali (The guy from The Brady Bunch match last week is now a serious threat?); Chris Jericho (Makes sense); and . . . . BRET HART~! Well, that was certainly the most unexpected Raw appearance in quite some time. Team Cena, the Hitman included, charge the ring, causing Nexus to bail and hide out amongst the audience. As a promo, the bulk of this wasn’t all too enthralling, and Cena’s team definitely could have had some stronger members. However, this wasn’t about the whole of the segment as much as it was about the one moment at the end, and I’ll have to admit that I popped a little bit sitting here on my couch when the Hitman’s music started to play, even if he is over the hill and even if the last match we saw him in was fairly atrocious. I’m legitimately interesting in seeing how this massive tag match gets built up and how it is executed at Summerslam in a manner that maintains Nexus’ momentum but doesn’t make the WWE side of the equation look like a bunch of morons for drafting an old man.
Rating: ***1/2

FINAL THOUGHTS

Segment of the Night: Orton vs. Jericho vs. Edge

Trash Segment of the Night: For the second consecutive week, DiBiase and Morrison.

Final Analysis: Top to bottom, this was probably one of the most consistent episodes of Monday Night Raw that I’ve seen since I started reviewing the program. The best segments here weren’t quite as good as the best segments on other shows, but the worst segments here weren’t quite as bad as the worst segments on other shows, and everything (except for DiBiase/Morrison) was, at a bare minimum, tolerable. Perhaps most importantly, though, there was meaningful build towards the pay per view. As noted in the body of the review, Randy Orton was put over VERY strongly as a contender for Sheamus’ title, and my hope is that they’re able to cut some worthwhile promos on one another in the coming weeks in order to really build up their match. On top of that, the seven-on-seven tag feels fresh and intriguing at this point, moreso than anything that was booked on Money in the Bank or most other WWE pay per views this year. This was a thumbs up show in terms of setting the table for the next month’s worth of television heading into Summerslam, and hopefully WWE and its creative team are capable of sustaining the momentum all the way through until the big event.

Verdict: 7.8

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