Cody Rhodes vs Batista in the cage match is all Batista naturally and as Batista is beating the hell out of Rhodes Randy comes back to ringside in a long tee shirt and his wrestling briefs looking like a drunken drag queen who has lost his wig. For Ortons benefit Batista does a spear followed by a powerbomb and Rhodes is done for now. Orton and Batista make the obligatory threatening faces at each other thru the cage like 9 year old schoolboys on the playground and the drama is over for now.

Kelli Kelli and Micki James vs Beth Phoenix and Maryse comes next and is a decent match with lots of cheating and high flying, also some decent cameltoe from Maryse doesn't hurt the match...
As usual the girls put on a good show and are way more entertaining than half of the mens matchups.

Carlito and Primo take on Regal and Matt Hardy who is still working the fake injury angle quite well in one of the better matches of the evening. Matt does the angry indignant injured wrestler role perfectly and Regal is always awesome to watch in the ring. His mannerisms and wrestling skill carry the match and when Hardy accidentally bashes Regal with his cast Carlito hits his signature move and gets the pin. The villains argue about the cast to the head incident and slink away to Vicki Guerrero's office to cut a promo about it. Matt's spray tan is all runny from being sweaty and pretty gross but the heels work a deal with Vicki for another shot at the tag belts.

Cena and Chavo vs Big Show and Miz in what is basically a three on one match for all the help Chavo is to Cena. Big Show threatens Miz and tells him to leave Cena for him but of course Miz has his own agenda with Cena and pushes Shows patience to the expected level. Also Miz cuts another brilliant promo on Cena before the match and entertains the crowd during the lengthy commercial breaks before the match. Show pretty much destroys Cena and John has no offense at all and after a short while Miz blind tags in and starts beating up poor Cena himself. This really pisses off Show and soon Cena bounces back and beats the hell outta Miz. Show then comes into the ring on a blind tag too and knocks Miz out cold and Chavo blind tags a groggy Cena and gets the pinfall on Miz. Cena takes out Chavo and then tries to whup Big Show but of course this not being a PPV Cena falls short and show jaw punches him and puts Cena in a backbreaker submission even though John is out of it. I am sure this will be reversed at Extreme Rules but for now Big Show is victorious. A good match.

So since the show is going so well why not mess it up a little with a stupid throwaway match...WWE is happy to oblige with MVP vs Kofi for the once important United States Championship belt. This match is boring and pointless and the crown isn't into it at all. It goes way too long and has way too many two counts and kickouts. Kofi eventually wins and the title goes to him on a free show. I am sure all the former U.S. Champions like Flair, Piper, Sgt Slaughter, Jimmy Snuka and Greg Valentine to name a few appreciate the obvious lack of respect shown the belt nowadays. Anyway...

A Vicki vs Santino hog slop match thats comedy relief in wrestling form is next and Regal and Hardy interfere per their deal with Vicki and all three get slimed by Santino and his bucket of slop. This is followed by the inevitable beatdown and poor Santino is covered in slop by a vengeful Vicki. Pretty funny diversion as usual by Santino and now somebodys gonna have to clean up the ring.

Finally after too many commercials and boring rehashes we get to watch the parking lot fight between Orton and Flair and a good one it is. There is a fair amount of back and forth and Flair really messes Orton up at first but eventually Randy starts to come out on top for awhile. Flair gets a kick in the nuts in and regains the advantage and both men are bleeding freely for a change. You can see one of the security guys wiping blood off of the barricade at ringside in a couple of the shots as the fans try to get it on their shirts for souvenirs. Flair tears up the announce table and puts Orton in the figure 4 leglock on top of it and the only thing that saves Randy is a run in by his goons. After a three way beatdown they drag poor Ric into the cage and Randy kicks out his henchmen and proceeds to destroy Flair. Batista runs in too late and apparently has lost the ability to climb into the locked cage so Ric gets his skull kicked in the trademark Orton fashion and to end the show the two adversaries engage in another staredown through the fence. Flair has still got it in the ring and it's a nice ending for another average show.

All in all this is another decent Raw but still not up to par with what we used to get a few years ago. They have so much unused talent and waste too much time on mediocre wrestlers and really I don't understand the thinking here. Vince, buddy, cmon man lets try to get back to the stuff that made us all fans to begin with...

Bye Bye
a Fan