Monday Night Raw: AJ To The Rescue

(Courtesy of WWE)

The worst part about getting your hopes up is that it hurts more when you’re let down. That was the case with Monday Night Raw, the holiday edition. Last week’s RAW was so good that it had me eagerly awaiting last night’s episode. It has been a long time since I have watched the clock on my cable box waiting for 9 o’clock to swing around. I even watched the last five minutes of NCIS because I didn’t want to miss a moment. Then I was reminded it was a holiday edition of RAW, which traditionally means the company coasts into next week.

That being said the episode wasn’t horrible. It just didn’t seem like a win, but more like a tie. There were some cool moments, but there were a lot of head smack moments. Also there seemed to be a rib by the writers because they were using a lot of cliché indie gimmicks during the show. Then AJ Lee showed up. I’ll get into that later.

It started off with the predictable 20 minutes of talk with John Cena blabbering about motivation. One time I want him to get pissed he got his ass kicked. You look like a moron when you’re talking about how you are now motivated. A chance to win a WWE title match contract wasn’t doing it for him but getting to feel the Big Show’s pimp hand gets Cena’s juices flowing. This is why his character grates on me.

Then Daniel Bryan comes & Yes’s all over the crowd. Who by the way was a bright spot for the show, because the crowd’s energy really helped me make it through the 130 minutes of RAW. CM Punk & Jericho follow to help build heat for the main event. Then Kane comes to remind people he’ll be one of the guys not winning at Money In The Bank. Finally Big Show comes out to motivate John Cena some more. It was a lot shoved into one segment with the purpose of keeping the two big matches for the PPV on the front burner. The hodgepodge tag team match really has become a crutch for WWE creative.

Another crutch is these multi-team 8 man tag matches. The match itself was ok, but AW is a gimmick stealer. Larry Sweeney did the sports agent gimmick way better than AW could dream of. Alexander Cain was even better, and he was a no talent indie hack. Being able to hear AW’s instructions through the arena distracted from what was going on in the ring. Sometimes a good manager is better when not heard or seen. AW seems to be outshining his own team.

In the end AW takes his Prime Time Players and leaves. Cody Rhodes shortly follows. Then Brodus Clay comes out to help four guys beat one David Otunga. Did I miss something, but when does the US Champ, The IC Champ, and the Tag Champs need a fifth guy to beat David Otunga? Good thing it wasn’t Ryback, or they might have needed five more. They are five faces and they gang up on one guy left in the lurch by his teammates. It looks like the anti-bullying campaign is really working in the WWE locker room.

The five on one beat down by the good guys had me so heated that I almost didn’t appreciate Albert Del Rio. He was good before, but he has really turned it up. He has the look and he is great in the ring. The crowd was way into hating ADR and they loved Sin Cara. This made the beat down by ADR come off as a true heel being villainous, not to be confused with four face champs & a dancing funkasaurus running a beat down train on David Otunga. It’s just logic.

Earlier I mentioned that it seemed like the writers were trying to pull a rib on the audience by doing all the cliché indie gimmicks. The first was the bait and switch of Brock Lesnar. Unless I missed something I am pretty sure that they were promoting an appearance by Brock. In fact I think it was in the teaser leading up to the start of the show. Even my wife said, “Oh good Brock is back”. Instead we get Paul Heyman from WWE headquarters. Not to complain because Heyman’s promo was great, but he isn’t Brock Lesnar as promised. Now we get to wait three weeks for Brock to show up. This is no different than when the local indie promotes a WWE star will be showing up and then claims “travel issues” once the show starts. It’s shady, and the WWE should be above the guy running a flea market in Indiana.

The second was the fake Doink the clown. For those that didn’t know that was the Brooklyn Brawler doing the Doink gimmick. This is something that goes on in almost every indie from east coast to west coast. They’ll promote former WWE superstar Doink and then have some local wrestler do the gimmick. Why not just have the Brooklyn Brawler come out and lose to Slater? It wasn’t like the audience remembered who Doink was. The old WWF fans would have enjoyed seeing the original jobber.

Adding to the cliché indie moment was DDP strolling out to give an RKO, I mean Diamond Cutter, to Slater before going back up the ramp. It probably took him longer to cash his check for the night. I assume he does about the same amount of work during his indie appearances like most legends who physically can’t compete anymore, i.e. The Iron “My Leg Looks F*cked Up” Sheik.

Side Note: How Awesome is “No Holds Barred”? It is still one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies of all time. Rip em!

I am glad Tyson Kidd is getting a push. He has tons of talent. He looks to be moving into a feud with Tensai. I’m sorry but the former Prince Albert doesn’t do it for me. His methodic style looks too rigid for my taste. His beat down backstage was good and I hope I am wrong about Albert 2.0. Sabu once told he likes working big guys because it lets you do more because they post really well and they can take more punishment. Hopefully the same holds true for Kidd as he works with Tensai on Smackdown.

Now onto AJ Lee who is amazing. Her character, actions, and whole persona have made her one of the best things in the WWE right now. She stands out from the Divas, and it seems like she can actually wrestle because that shining wizard was one of the better ones. I don’t get why she was in a mixed tag with Sheamus, but I guess her loose tie to Vickie Guerrero from last week and Vickie’s tie to Ziggler, who is kinda feuding with Sheamus, completes the six degrees of separation.

AJ’s backstage stuff was gold. Eating the rose from Bryan. Getting miffed that Punk doesn’t watch her match. Her crazy eyes segment with Eve. All three did a lot to add to her character and her match at the PPV. CM Punk and Daniel Bryan are going to tear the house down, but right now nobody knows how that match is going to go because AJ is a real wild card.  It makes you want to order Money In The Bank, which is something a Diva hasn’t done for the WWE in years. Bravo AJ Lee!

The Main Event was a good match. Cena took some great heat from Jericho and Bryan. Before the match when the two had a catch phrase duel, I popped. If Jericho wanted to stay in the WWE, how awesome would a Byran/Jericho tag team be? They could rebuild the whole division by themselves.

In the end Cena and Jericho fight to the back and that leads to one of the coolest closing angle moments in RAW’s history. For weeks AJ has been distracting Kane by skipping to the ring. With Punk and Bryan it doesn’t work because these two are top gun talent. They focus on what goes on between the ropes. AJ then cranks up the crazy by threatening to launch herself from the top rope to a table she set up on the outside. This is enough to get the attention of the two men.

When AJ kissed Punk and then pushed him into Bryan as both men crashed into the table, I knew this was going to be a special moment. The shot of the two men laid out by the pint sized pixie while the crowd chanted along with her was an amazing way to close the show. In short AJ with her segments and this closer probably saved this episode of RAW.

As far as holiday shows go, most of this was true to form coasting. I didn’t even talk Big Show vs. Kane, because it was just plunder for the sake of plunder. The whole Punk-Bryan-AJ feud is carrying the WWE right now and people like John Cena need to either step their game up or get out of the way. For this week its AJ’s crazy world, and we’re just living in it. And that’s not a bad thing.