Last night’s episode of RAW wasn’t bad, it was just long. It
felt even longer because of all the recaps that kept on getting replayed throughout
the show. Hey guess what WWE, most of your fans are watching the whole three
hours and last week, so they don’t need 45 minutes of their time wasted by
recaps. How about putting on more wrestling, new characters, or developing your
Summer Slam main event? That means creative was my first idiot of the night.
My second idiot of the night was AJ Lee. She’s now the GM
and has gone heelish vanilla. What I mean by that is she lost her personality
now that she has power and acts like somebody who is just being fed lines
instead of being a unique character. The heelish part is that she seems to be
doing half of her actions out of vengeance. She is acting like a scorned girl
version of Johnny Ace. Is it because she’s a chick that it makes her a face? She screws over Daniel Bryan and then she
screws over CM Punk; yet does little else during the show. For her first show
as GM I give AJ an incomplete because that’s what her performance felt like.
The third, and biggest, idiot of the night was AW. I said a
few weeks back that having a live mic on this guy was going to be a bad idea.
He doesn’t seem to do well thinking on his feet. He showed I was right last
night when he used a Kobe Bryant rape joke. Not even popular comedian Daniel
Tosh can pull off a rape joke, so why does AW think he has a chance of doing
it? The only good that comes from this might be that AW gets removed from TV.
He is new enough that if he was pulled from TV fans wouldn’t even know. Hell by
Summer Slam they would probably forget who he even was.
The Prime Time Players have a lot of promise as a tag team.
It would seem that they are headed toward a tag title run. Cut the dead weight
that is their manager before his lack of talent brings them crashing down. If
the WWE thinks they need a manager so bad then why not give them to Vickie
Guerrero? She is a heat magnet, she knows how to handle herself, and two young
party boys play into her cougar gimmick. It’s not rocket science, its
wrestling.
One thing about going three hours that was great was the
extended length of the main matches. The Albery Del Rio match was great. He has
really hit his stride as of late. I know Sheamus is being booked as this
monster World champion, but ADR could do so much more with the strap around his
waist. Having Sheamus, Rey Mysterio, and Dolph Ziggler coming at him from all
angles is months of ticket selling storylines. I hope at Summer Slam that is
what is in store for my new favorite Smackdown heel. Plus doing the arm breaker
on the Cobra was a great little move.
Daniel Bryan is the man. He made Sheamus look like a million
bucks in that street fight. They had some cool moments, and the flying knee off
the stage made me pop. I knew Sheamus was going to win because he doesn’t put
anybody over clean as of late, but Bryan made me doubt myself a couple of times.
The segments with the doctor and Bryan were good. The first
one was ok, but the Charlie Sheen one had me laughing. The goat face segment was original, and I like the creativity in it. Bryan has really
developed his personality. The end with Kane attacking him was good. They
should have a decent match up with Sheen somehow involved at Summer Slam. It
also makes sense since Kane is one of AJ’s exes. He still pines for her a bit,
and so he’ll beat up Bryan for her. It adds another quality match to the PPV,
which is a good thing.
The tag match was great. Give me Jericho, Christian,
Ziggler, and Miz in the ring any day of the week. They told a great story. Each
had their own interactions with their respective feud. They had some cool
spots, and the end was what it should have been with Jericho getting the
advantage over the Miz. The aftermath with Ziggler smashing Jericho was spot on
too. This build to their feud has been well crafted, and adds yet another good
match to the PPV.
The middle matches like Tyson Kidd vs. Tensai, Orton vs.
Slater, and O’Neil vs. Kingston were nothing special. Orton debuting was cool,
but that’s all it was. Tensai just doesn’t do it for me. He gives tons of
effort and seems like a guy who really puts in his all. It just isn’t my cup of
tea. I think Kidd could be valuable, but not in this feud. These three matches
were more filler to me than anything else.
The new direction of CM Punk has begun. He’s now feeling
disrespected because he’s the WWE Champion and he should be the main
attraction. I like it, but the WWE better be careful of burning him out. He
appeared a lot last night in non-wrestling roles. He was opening the show, and
closing it, with a promo segment in the middle with Cena. Too much of a good
thing can make the audience go sour on him.
Also why didn’t he wrestling Jerry Lawler last night? He had
issues with Lawler. The creative team wants to turn Punk heel. Everybody loves
the King. It’s a no brainer, plus Punk can protect Lawler in the ring. They
started out like they were going to have a match, but instead they got into war
of words on commentary. Unless this has a payoff next week of Punk vs. Lawler,
then it is a lot of wasted energy when more focus should be on Punk’s true
opponents, Big Show and John Cena.
Speaking of Superman and Doomsday, they had a sloppy match.
It wasn’t a bad match but there were moments where things didn’t click. Like
when Show goes to toss Cena off during a pin attempt and Cena stands up then
flings himself to the ropes. It just looks bad.
The end of the match with Cena being missile tossed into
Punk was cool. The whole laid out until the 9 count only to gain the strength
to dead sprint to the ring in less than a second looks stupid. I hate that spot
because why doesn’t Cena have the energy to move after that? It insults our
intelligence.
The very end after Punk laid out Show and Cena felt very
flat. Again this comes from AJ, who gives little to the moment by announcing the
Summer Slam match. Punk is screaming at her and she acts like nothing is going
on. Give me some emotion in the face of his anger. What about putting Punk in a
match next week? Like against Jerry Lawler. It’s something they could have
promoted all week.
Maybe even make it for the title to add some spice. Have AJ
say if Punk doesn’t want to be in the triple threat then he won’t be if he
loses the title to Lawler next week. It is a small story arc that plays off
what happened most of the show plus gives the WWE something to promote for a
week. Maybe even have the match lead off the show. Again it’s not rocket
science, its wrestling.
Overall the show was good. I liked the longer wrestling
matches. I even liked some of the segments with Daniel Bryan, and the promo
with Punk & Cena. It also had a lot of downfalls. I hope next week that
there is no AW and a whole lot less recaps. It wouldn’t hurt to have somebody
from the Summer Slam main event on the show. Three weeks from the PPV, yet HHH,
Brock, and Heyman are nowhere to be seen. If that kind of booking continues
then the same could be said about viewers.
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