Raw ThoughtsIn a reverse of the week before, the show opens up with Randy Orton in the ring to sign the contract for the main event of No Way Out. He recaps the result of last week’s confrontations with Cena and regains a lot of his heel persona by coming off as being in charge of the situation. Its nice to see Orton not running scared from the former champ, but actually acting as though Cena would be the more likely to back down. This really worked for Orton and brought his cockiness levels way back up.
Orton confidently settles himself into a chair as Cena comes out and plays to the crowd for a while. Eventually the former champ signs the contract, but not before re-asserting himself with a quick push to Orton. Obviously he has no qualms in signing the contract and it’s great to see both men trying to head into the PPV as strong, confident superstars – rather than one of them looking weaker than the other. Orton does end the segment on top though, after an RKO following a run in from Mark Henry who will be trying to tear apart Cena’s pectoral in an arm wrestling contest later on.
It’s nice to see this sort of segment at the beginning of the show, as they always tend to be the main event segments and they just come off so poorly. There is often a nice beat down or a shot through the table – but these types of segments rarely come off well.
Backstage, Orton tells Todd Grisham that he didn’t ask for Henry’s help but that he is always going to take advantage of that sort of situation. Henry takes the mic and says that he is going enjoy every minute of ripping The Marine’s arm from its socket.
For reasons unknown, ECW’s own Kelly Kelly is on Raw to team with Mickie James against Beth and Victoria. I guess this one is just a way to add some new faces for the two Raw diva’s to play with. Victoria continued her mean streak in this match, and it’s a real shame that she wasn’t kept on Raw as she would have worked really well as a heel alongside Beth, but I guess she is still used regularly on the blue brand. In a new twist, the match ended with Mickie finally picking up her win – however it was not against the women’s champion so she doesn’t really have too much to shout about. Beth didn’t look happy and Mickie looked ready to take her on, so I would think that this one will come to a head in two weeks time. I wouldn’t expect a new champion to be crowned but at least they might have a very good match this time around as there is some good chemistry built up between them now.
William Regal tells Hornswoggle that he has to join the Kiss My Ass club tonight (Vince’s turn on his son happened very quickly didn’t it?) but the video is ended abruptly and we skip to HBK heading out to the ring. He talks about his losses in big matches over the past couple of years and gives notice to his No Way Out opponents that he plans to win the Elimination Chamber and go one better at WrestleMania 24.
He is interrupted by a previous WrestleMania opponent of his, “Y2J” Chris Jericho, who joins him and basically tells him that he disagrees with his prediction for No Way Out. Jericho explains about his experience advantage in the match in question but is in turn interrupted by Jeff Hardy. Jeff talks about how he has never been as high as them but that he will do anything to take the opportunity from them. As expected, JBL follows the trio out and throws in his two cents before the Samoan Bulldozer, who has apparently agreed to team with JBL in said match, heads out too. Just to add a bit more lunacy, Snitsky comes out as well and actually talks. He complains that he is not involved in this match and demands one of their spots. HBK tells him where to go and six end up brawling – 6 man tag? I think so. Sure enough, William Regal soon set this one up and we had ourselves a 6-man tag team match for the main event.
This segment was obviously slightly overcrowded but because no man ranted for too long, it didn’t become too tiresome, other than what seemed to be an endless run of entrances. Jericho didn’t really come off as too hot here but even when he is off, he is as good as most others, so this was pretty much successful on all fronts, except maybe for the absence of Triple H who was apparently away from Raw due to family reasons (which could really hinder the promotion of the match seeing as he will be unable to be involved in any build up for it, despite being the favourite to win it).
Mr. Kennedy and Super Crazy mix it up in the ring but the match doesn’t last long and Kennedy soon has his arm raised after a beautiful submission move that didn’t look too dissimilar to the figure four leg lock. I like Kennedy’s build up at the minute and I hope that it isn’t just simply to make him look good before Flair pins him in two weeks. This sort of build, where Kennedy looks absolutely vicious before doing a little bit of mic work after the match, really works well and suits his character to a tee.
Santino and Carlito defeated Brian Kendrick and his returning partner Paul London in a very quick match after Carlito hit Kendrick with the back stabber. There are definite parallels in the way that Carlito is being built up and the way that Kennedy is being built up, but I am totally unsure as to why they are going this route with Carlito as I don’t see any big push coming his way and all the rumours suggest that he may well be leaving the Raw roster very soon as well.
After we have to bear witness to Vince having his ass polished up, he heads out to ringside to subject his son to his buttocks, in HD. After insulting the crowd about parenthood and tough love, the little bastard child joins his father in the ring. Vince explains to him about how much he loves him but that he has brought this on himself. He soon drops his pants and his son is just about to comply before Finley interrupts. Vince tells the Irishman that he is his boss and that both of them will now kiss his ass. Neither man is up to it and Hornswoggle eventually bites Vince in the ass before the pair high-tail it.
This segment dragged and was pretty pointless. Vince got some good heat early on and it was certainly better than some of the Kiss My Ass Club segments we have seen over the years but it’s still not exactly enthralling television. Even the ending with Finley came across poorly.
Rhodes and Holly defeated the ex-tag team champions, Cade and Murdoch (wasn’t Cade supposed to be out with some long-term injury) in a quick match before Carlito and Santino came out to greet them. Carlito tells the pair that they have been named as the new number one contenders and Santino says that they have about as much chance in defeating them, as Playboy have in getting Maria.
I like this little feud and whilst it may not produce a ground-breaking match, I cant see it being anything too horrible and at the same time we are keeping the tag titles on TV and are also slowly building up this years women’s title/Playboy feud as we head into WrestleMania.
The 6-man tag followed and it was pretty damned entertaining. This was mostly down to the fast-paced offence of the faces though. Obviously all three men on the one team are great wrestlers and have their own entertaining offence, so whenever one of them was on top the match was looking good. The heels came back into the match after the break and the excitement backed away as their bleak offence and weak heel tactics took over, but it all picked up again and came back to life towards the finish after Jericho was made to be the cannon fodder before getting the hot tag to Jeff Hardy. All the heels did get their finishers in but Jeff rounded the match up by hitting his own on Snitsky for the win. This kept the momentum on the faces, specifically on Jeff who was made to look pretty weak on the last show, and no one really lost out as Snitsky was just brought into the equation to participate in this tag team match.
The finale to the show was the arm wrestling contest that had to be, probably for the best (at least for us!) squeezed into the remaining 5 minutes. Henry plays the usual stalling tactics, but with only 2 minutes left on the show, he has to get things going so he ends up punching Cena in the arm; and suddenly he is happy to start the contest. Cena mans up and still takes on the silverback and just as he is about to win, as expected, Orton runs in for the sneak attack. However, Cena catches sight of him and chases him off before taking down the world strongest man with the FU to close the show.
Unfortunately, this show didn’t really do anything for me. I am not totally sure what was missing but nothing really stood out as great build up for the PPV, and also nothing really stood out as a great stand-alone show segment. They just seemed to be coasting through this one and I hope that this is just down to them having already worked a taping, for next week, before the live show and that next week’s show is much more eventful and adequately builds to No Way Out.