Raw Thoughts
Obviously John Cena had to open the show. After his shocking return and victory the night before, everyone had questions that needed answering. Cena certainly hasn’t lost a step at all with his microphone work but what he had to say was not exactly thrilling. We were lead to believe that Cena was going to be out for 9 whole months and yet he has returned after 2 or 3; this must be down to lying or getting the facts wrong, or Cena simply being in such good shape that he worked it off. But what we got was him telling us that he has risked everything to make it back to WrestleMania. Whilst this probably makes him a hero to the younger fans, and the fans that were cheering for him anyway; the older fans, and the ones that are still booing him, took this as an insult. Its obvious to everyone that Vince is in love with Cena at the moment, and for good reason; Cena is a public relations God and he is a massive merchandise seller so of course he should be rushed back as soon as possible. But do we really have to be given this crap and have him rammed straight into a title match as well? What about Jeff Hardy? Does he just get pushed back into obscurity whilst Cena takes his place? That wont go down well.
Anyway, Cena challenged Orton to a match right away – which at least makes sense seeing as Orton is the one, storyline wise, who put Cena away and Cena would want his revenge straight away. However, after just telling us all that WrestleMania is the dream, why would he then challenge Orton to a match before then, and risk losing his main event slot altogether!? In the end, Orton (who himself was still on form) accepted the challenge, but for No Way Out. This I do not like. Orton being in the WM main event may not sound great, but it has real heat and a decent back-story. It now looks like Triple H will be challenging the champion Cena at WrestleMania which has been done before and doesn’t really have any real heat. So on top of having Cena thrown back to the top, we also have a feud between him and Hunter that we don’t really want to see either. Great booking there.
Mickie and Beth continued there recent storyline tonight by putting in some decent moves in a mixed tag match that also involved Jillian and Ashley. I think the current direction Mickie is going in appears to be leading down to a heel turn, but I don’t think that will happen – not just yet anyway. Hopefully these two will be able to go one-on-one again at the February PPV and have a decent match. Unfortunately for Mickie, that will probably be the end of her run as she is pushed out of the way for Maria to step up at the big stage. I still wouldn’t rule out a multi-woman match yet though. The match itself was pretty sloppy at times but both Beth and Mickie looked pretty solid. One thing I didn’t like though was Ashley’s poor attempt at making the save at the end. She simply stood and watched and then got in the ring after the 3 count – pretty poor timing if you ask me.
Vince and William Regal discuss a potential match at No Way Out before Regal heads out to announced that the winner of an Elimination Chamber match will face Orton or Cena at No Way Out. This match has obviously been planned for a while but we didn’t really know what context it would take; now we do. Regal was great in this segment –he just came across as so evil and conniving - and I found it absolutely hilarious when he got his tongue twisted and the crowd laughed at him – typically he just went with it. What I wasn’t expecting was for the participants to be announced straight away, with no qualifying match types. So, we now have Umaga vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho vs. JBL vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Triple. This does make sense so I guess there is no reason for any type of qualifying matches. Triple H is the obvious winner and will face Cena (but don’t be surprised to see Orton thrown in there somewhere – if he doesn’t get the honour of taking down Ric Flair). Jericho and JBL will come out of this and continue their own feud into WrestleMania, and we may well get Jeff vs. Umaga for the IC title if he isn’t in the Money in the Bank match. Or, how about this for a juicy WM24 match – Jeff Hardy vs. Shawn Michaels…
In a match born out of an incident at the Rumble (where Carlito spit in Cody Rhode’s face) we had Cody Rhodes defeating Carlito in a singles match, with their respective tag team partners at ringside. The match itself was half-decent but unfortunately we actually missed the out-of-nowhere finish due to the action on the outside. This is probably going to lead into a tag title match in a week or two though so we should get another look at these guys together. The backstage feelings on Carlito must have changed though as they are starting to build him up as credible again, and are mentioning that he can beat you quickly and without you realising – similar to the way they build up Orton, not that Carlito is going anywhere near World Champion level anytime soon.
So the defiance of DX never teaming again continued on Raw as Hunter and Shawn put themselves together just “one more time” to take on Umaga and Snitsky. This one started off with Hunter mocking Snitsky and believe me that was funny, as was the “brush your teeth” chant. They may even manage to get Snitsky over now that everyone can see him clearly in HD! The match had a nice ending with the faces having a flurry of offence after Triple H received the hot tag, but the rest of the match dragged out just a little bit too much. I think Shawn was under the cosh just a little bit too long, though I have to say the crowd loved it all and ate up his constant attempts to escape Umaga and tag out.
Orton and JBL got themselves into a pretty intense confrontation backstage. I actually really enjoyed this and if they weren’t both destined to be heels I think they would be able to build up a pretty solid angle – even if the resulting matches would be doomed from the get-go.
After Jeff gives a quick interview saying that his dream is not over yet (and that he still has a great chance to go on to WrestleMania, via the Elimination Chamber) Vince admonishes his son for his actions at the Rumble. I still have no idea where this one is going but, even though it involved Vince and Hornswoggle, I must stay that it still holds my interest.
After the break, Kennedy destroys Brian Kendrick in a very quick match that made Kennedy actually look quite vicious. This lead well to his post-match promo where he explains that he asked to be excluded from the Elimination Chamber so that he could wrestle, and retire, Ric Flair. He sounded very good on the mic here and we really started to see his proper heel persona again. I have to say that I also like this match and it is going to help No Way Out to be a very solid card indeed. The one thing that does disappoint me though is that I was a fan of Kennedy being the one to get the win over the Nature Boy – but much like we said about MVP, it isn’t going to be happening at this PPV, not yet.
A half-decent match between Maria and Melina preceded the shows main event. How far has Melina dropped over the last few months? This match was much of nothing and as much as Maria has improved of late, she is still not solid enough to hold up a decent match or feud. On top of that, the majority of her offence is pretty damned poor too. At least her pairing with Santino is getting over.
After a nice, if slightly heel-ish, interview from Chris Jericho in regards to his feud with JBL and his WrestleMania chances, our main even of Orton/JBl vs. Jericho/Jeff Hardy gets underway. The match was more than half decent but I didn’t particularly like watching it. The heels looked way too strong for me and Jericho was the only one of the two faces to make any decent offence. I enjoyed it anyway but I would certainly have much preferred to see a little more off Jeff hardy, rather than just having his momentum stopped complete.
The aftermath saw Cena chase down the champion and his partner only for JBL to make a quick exit and leave Cena to tear Orton apart. I liked this and it made perfect sense. This feud is about Orton and Cena and JBL does not need to be anywhere near it. On top of that, it fits JBL’s character perfectly to abandon another heel in that situation; so I was definitely happy with how that all went down.
So what did I think of Raw? It was a very mixed show really but even the poor segments couldn’t stop me from enjoying it. I think this time of year always looks good and I was in quite a good mood following the Rumble too, so that will have helped. No match really angered me and I like the direction that the company is heading towards No Way Out and WrestleMania 24 – even if I would have done it a different way myself.
Thanks for reading again guys. I should be back tomorrow with either some news updates or a look at the ECW show, if I get around to watching it. As usual all comments and feedback is welcome at batista666@hotmail.com.