Last night, WWE seemed to be swinging for the fences with RAW. Long, solid matches. Decent story building. Not a lot of extra fluff. Does that give RAW the power to topple SmackDown as number one in my WWE fortified heart?No. But it tried its darnedest. To the recap!
- R-Truth Rant: People on the East Coast and other places may have got "technical difficulties", but here on the West Coast of the US, we got the full effect of R-Truth's insanity. And, as most things he does lately, it was AMAZING. Truth has become such an effective heel over such a short time. This segment also set up our main event (Cena vs. Truth) so it was top to bottom solid. A good start to a decent show.
- Ziggler vs. Kofi: This match has only barely been built up in recent weeks, but that didn't stop this from being a good opening match. Despite a few segments where the two's styles didn't gel (leading to some awkwardness), both Kofi and Ziggler were great. The finish relied on Dolph staying evasive and using his brain, and yet again Kofi loses due to his reckless style. I'm not sure WHY the WWE powers that be put the belt on Kingston if they're going to continue to make him look this weak, but that's neither here nor there. This was just a solid opener. ALSO; it stands mentioning that Vickie Guerrero... lookin' pretty good lately. She can "Excuse Me" any time. That... that doesn't make sense...
- Another Pointless Divas Match: Yep, another Divas match that ends as quickly as it starts. I'm hoping that, seeing as what's going on with the Divas roster (revealed later in the show), WWE starts developing the Divas more, or putting the belt on more talented Divas that can carry actual matches. As it stands now, the Divas are barely worth mentioning.
- CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio: The match of the night. When you get two guys with such stellar in-ring ability together, the match can't help but be entertaining, and this was no exception. Mysterio still has that ability to sell just about any move, and Punk has such great ring psychology (working his heel persona the entire time). A couple of big false climaxes ramp up to Punk finishing this one with a kick (kinda cool to see). I'm sure this will lead to an underdeveloped feud between these two, but when they can put on matches like this, I couldn't care less.
- Kharma Says Goodbye: Surprise! The biggest news of last week is confirmed to be true by the woman herself. I gotta admit, I was pretty touched by what Kharma had to say, but I think the segment was handled poorly overall. As I've said before, the Divas are so underdeveloped and useless right now, what was the point of making the Bellas have a heel moment? What could have been an extremely sincere moment, instead turned ugly.
- Bourne vs. Swagger: Bourne and Swagger have a small feud currently going on, and they go at it again tonight. I think Swagger actually works particularly well against smaller guys, and he carries the match here as he shows off a lot of his strength and physicality. They give the win to Bourne with a roll-up, and keep the feud going. It's not much, but both these guys are good and it's good to see some mid-card feuds outside of the usual five or so "main" guys.
- ZACK RYDER!!!: Internet Champion sighting! I really don't know where they're headed with him showing up with Cena all the time, but I'm not complaining. WWWYKI.
- The Main Event: Surprisingly, the main event with Truth and Cena isn't a long drawn out war. Rather, the E uses this opportunity to further R-Truth in his heel status, having him steal a quick one against Cena via count-out. While this isn't exactly "wrestling", it's still good story-telling.
RAW was solid. Solid in terms of RAW, solid in terms of WWE, and solid in terms of wrestling. Period. Does it eclipse SmackDown? Not quite. I'm still feel like SmackDown's production value and booking beats RAW, but I think this is a step in the right direction. With all the stupid Michael Cole nonsense out of the way, I look forward to seeing where an unfettered RAW can go. As for Monday, it gets 4 out of 5 stars.
Be on the lookout for more Pro Wrestling fun and analysis later this week.
Until then check out some of my more recent postings...
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