Raw - 9th Jan 2012 - 7.5/10
Raw opened with a promo from Kane. He basically reiterated what he’s been saying recently about hate. Cena then turned up and they started to fight. They took it backstage and violence continued to ensue in the parking lot. A lot happens in the parking lot. Cena turns to retaliate after Kane lays him out to find Kane has disappeared. I feel like it’s just me who has little to no interest in this feud. It feels like filler until Cena moves onto the Rock. I don’t want to get my hopes up for Cena eventually snapping and lashing out. The segment was around ten minutes and not particularly engaging for me.
The first match of the night was a tag team match with Sheamus and Santino Marella taking on Wade Barrett and Jinder Mahal, following up from an incident on Smackdown where chaos broke out in the ring between Wade, Sheamus and Jinder. I can’t be the only who would have rather seen Wade team up with Drew, right? Especially considering Santino beat Drew on Smackdown. The end was predictable with Santino pinning Jinder. Unfortunately, I don’t think it makes Sheamus or Jinder look any good. Why are you having a guy nowhere near the top of the ladder consistently confront a beast like Sheamus? However, there is finally more build-up to the Royal Rumble as all four men are announced to be competing in the Rumble. Once again, we’re told the winner will compete in the main event at Wrestlemania. I think not.
The Miz is backstage complaining about R-Truth at John Laurinaitis and David Otunga. I would like to point out that “Big Johnny” and Miz’s suits were nicely colour co-ordinated, intentional or not. Miz repeats what he said last week. Laurinaitis tells us Brodus Clay is debuting on Raw that very night! Oh, really?
CM Punk versus Jack Swagger is announced for later on that night. It still annoys me he’s not in the second hour main event. This obsession with ratings is unhealthy. You’re making your belt look even less credible by having it constantly take a backseat to Cena or whoever will be in the main event. If you want to keep Punk in the first hour every now and then, fine but do you really need to do it all the time?! No. Stop it.
Edge is being inducted into the Hall of Fame this year and I teared up. Christian has to induct him. There is absolutely no question about it. However, I wish they’d waited for Wrestlemania to be in Toronto to induct Edge. It would have made it that much more special, I think. This is still great to hear though. There’s no doubt about how brilliant a career Edge has had.
Miz is seen asking Mason Ryan to be his bodyguard. Okay then.
Zack Ryder is on the phone to his dad, talking about how Kane nearly dragged him to hell. He completely changes tune and says he’ll destroy Kane when Eve turns up. I ship these two so hard right now. Apparently they’re going on a date after Eve’s match against Beth Phoenix. Someone is seen creeping behind Ryder. I thought it was Truth for a moment.
We get yet another Champion v Champion match! Can you sense my excitement? Kofi Kingston takes on Daniel Bryan. Bryan gets a pretty flat reception from the crowd. It doesn’t help that Bryan’s alignment as either a babyface or a heel hasn’t been fully established yet here he is taking on Kofi. Michael Cole is a heel commentator, right? So why is his commentary still anti-Bryan? The match is short. Daniel Bryan wins via submission with the LaBell Lock, which was good to see. He celebrates extensively, climbing onto the announce table, which I love and gets a slightly better crowd reaction. There was the odd cheer and boo. It’s an improvement! Big Show’s theme plays and the crowd picks up. Bryan grabs the mic and cuts of Show before he barely gets a word in. He says he’s also annoyed at how the match on Smackdown turned out because of Mark Henry and he’s willing to defend his title against him again, whenever Show wants because he’s a fighting champion. Show informs him a no-DQ, no count-out match between the two of them is booked for the title on that week’s Smackdown. I’d like it if we got less title matches on TV, please. There’s some hesitancy with Bryan but he eventually accepts what Show told him.
There’s a re-cap of Y2J’s return last week. We see Brodus Clay’s locker room door. Woah!
This segment was definitely… Suprising. Frankly, I don’t know how Justin Roberts managed to keep himself composed the whole time. Think Big Dick Johnson meets Viscera… And here emerges Brodus Clay with two dancers (Naomi Knight and Ariane Andrew (that’s the Melina/Alicia Fox girl) from FCW). Apparently, we’ve gone from Hall Of Pain, which was apparently his idea, to Planet Funk. Brodus squashes Curt Hawkins. I don’t understand what WWE have against Hawkins. He’s got the mic skills, the in-ring skills, the look, Big Glenn and unlike most of the roster, he has character. Honestly, I can’t put into words what this segment was like. My mind was blown as was many others’. The crowd didn’t seem to know how to respond either.
Backstage, Zack is brushing his teeth, celebrating over his date with Eve. Someone is stalking him.
Miz asks Epico and Primo (with Rosa) to be his bodyguards and is unsuccessful. CM Punk turns up and laughs at him.
CM Punk takes on Jack Swagger. Due to an interruption from John Laurinaitis before the bell rings, we’re informed If Punk is victorious, Swagger and Vickie will be banned from ringside for Dolph’s chance at the title at the Royal Rumble. Dolph Ziggler is announced to be facing John Cena later that night. The match starts out pretty slow with plenty of mat work. Punk counters an ankle lock yet Swagger manages to maintain control for the beginning. Ziggler attempts to attack Punk when he’s thrown outside the ring but is stopped by Laurinaitis. After switching positions with Swagger, who is still in the ring, Punk takes control with a suicide dive. Back in the ring, he lands some nice kicks and a neckbreaker, followed by a high knee with Swagger in the corner. Swagger counters the running bulldog, resulting in a few near falls after Swagger lands plenty of power moves on Punk. Punk counters an attempt for the gutwrench powerbomb, getting Swagger into position for the GTS. Swagger counters that and we have another near fall. Punk eventually wins when he hits the elbow from the top rope. It looked like two and a half to me and after a slowed down replay, we see that it was in fact two and a half. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), Laurinaitis doesn’t object to the referee’s call. I love how when Swagger got his shoulder up, Punk just shoved his arm to the side. This was a pretty decent match! I’m not a big fan of Jack Swagger but I liked this match.
There’s a replay of Kane/Cena’s PG backstage brawl.
Cena and Ryder are talking backstage and what does Cena do? He brings up Twitter. Now I love Twitter. I tweet constantly (cheap plug: @livetogetrad) and I shouldn’t really complain but to continuously bring it up to this extent? It’s a bit too much. Zack definitely has a stalker. I like these consistent Ryder backstage segments. It reminds me of when we used to get numerous skits backstage that would all tie into each other and various storylines. It’s something WWE have been sorely lacking for a long time now.
The Bellas are backstage. Oh joy(!) Ricardo Rodriguez turns up because the Bellas want to send Alberto, who has a groin injury, a message. The Miz threatens Ricardo to call out R-Truth and insult him, obviously to set him up. Ricardo eventually says he’ll do it. Poor Ricky. :(
The Four Horsemen are the second inductees for the Hall of Fame announced on Raw. With Ric Flair on TNA, I’m kind of interested to see how this will work out for both promotions.
Ricardo is scared as shit when he calls out Truth and awkwardly insults his mom and his breath. I love you, Ricky. Truth comes out and says because he’s a GOOD R-TRUTH, he might let Ricardo go. After the Little Jimmys object to Ricardo leaving unharmed, Truth demands he sings and this is brilliant and gets Ricardo a nice pop. However, after knocking a microphone out of Truth’s hand, he’s attacked, only for The Miz to rush into the ring and a fight ensues between him and R-Truth. I’d like to point out Miz looks great in that hoodie. R-Truth gains the upper hand so Miz resorts to escaping through the audience. I’m not sure how I feel about Miz being presented as so cowardly. I was hoping he’d have turned face by now.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the only man to ever defeat Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in the same night to become the first ever Undisputed WWE Champion; Chris Jericho!” I love what Jericho’s doing. I love how he was introduced. I love the mockery he’s clearly making of the audience and how they blindly cheer him. I love how he basically repeated what he did last week. I love the Christmas lights, the cheesy smile, the blatant ass-kissing of the fans. I love how he got all “emotional” in the middle of the ring and just left without saying a word into the mic he was holding. Can someone take a “Jeritroll” sign soon with the troll face and all? I love this. The cheers begin to fade into boos as he leaves. Everything he’s doing self-explanatory. Don’t you get it?
We have the promised Divas match between Eve Torres and Beth Phoenix. Eve is in the ring and then someone else’s theme music plays. Now I know Beth is one hell of a brutal competitor but… Kane? Anyway, this was a tiny bit pathetic in how Eve just froze and panicked until Ryder came out and “saved” her by taking her to the parking lot and getting her into a car… Which has a flat tyre. Zack is trying to fix the tyre and this was actually a pretty comical scene. They are adorable though. Again, I like how these backstage segments all tie into each other and are relevant. Those two aside, where has our Divas Champion been as of late? I miss her. :(
The beginning of Ziggler’s entrance is cut. Cena is greeted with cheers for once. Ziggler gets onto his showing off pretty quick. Getting Cena into a headlock, he keeps hold whilst doing a headstand and then a bridge. I still really think he needs to pick up more “Show-Off” mannerisms like Chris Hero was with Larry Sweeney. This was an improvement in showing off though. Good man, Ziggler. After numerous elbows to Cena’s chest, he starts doing sit ups only to have Cena take advantage and treat us to some “Vintage Cena”! This is short-lived as footage of Kane attacking Ryder in the parking lot appears on the titantron. Meanwhile, Eve is locked in the car, screaming. Cena is distracted, enabling Ziggler to lock on the sleeperhold. Kane chokeslams Ryder in the parking lot and Cena runs off towards to them as soon as he breaks free of Ziggler, throwing him into the steel steps and the referee begins the ten-count. Kane attacks Cena and Raw ends.
Raw gets a 7.5/10 from me this week. A solid B. I was originally inclined to give it a 7 but I thought I’d be a little nicer. ;) I liked it though. I’d have liked to see a bit more of a build-up for the Royal Rumble in terms of the thirty-man Battle Royal. So far, we have essentially four men really confirmed. I’m still annoyed Punk wasn’t in the main event yet again as this doesn’t help with the credibility of your champion and title but I’ll deal with it. Champion versus Champion matches need to just stop. I enjoyed most of the rest of it. This Cena/Kane feud started to grow on me with the backstage segment concerning Ryder and the closing of the show. Who was stalking Ryder though? It can't have been Kane... Was it? All in all, a definite improvement compared to last week’s Raw.
