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Overall, this was an average show only because the show started off so strongly.
Here are my thoughts on this week’s show:
The WWE Championship Controversy
It took until the end of the show, but we found out that John Cena and CM Punk will meet at SummerSlam to determine who the true WWE Champion is. However, before we found out from Triple H, there were some other developments involving the two men in the match and the man who made this match.
The show started off with a recap of everything that happened related to CM Punk and John Cena since Money in the Bank. After the recap, CM Punk came to the ring to explain why he came back to WWE after talking about how he was done with the company before Money in the Bank. I thought Punk had a very good promo at the start of the show. He continues with the ‘voice of the people’ concept even though he is not trying to be the fan favorite. Punk came off as honest in his assessment based on what he said before Money in the Bank. Punk made a good point that even though he talked about the change in the WWE, John Cena has a title so how much has really changed?
I also liked how Punk told the fan in the crowd that he had a belt while Punk said that he was holding a championship title. It made me think of the video that Punk did for Jimmy Kimmel.
Punk and Hunter had a good back and forth in the opening segment. A lot of the things that Punk said sounded like something that Triple H would have said when he was part of DX.
I liked that Hunter gave his side of the story and it was not exactly the same as what Punk said. It sets up the anti-authority figure in Punk a la Steve Austin, but he is also being portrayed as someone who is doing this for his own ego as much as what he claims are altruistic methods.
I thought the best part of the opening segment was the part when Punk asked Hunter to tell everyone what he really thinks of him when Hunter said that he looked past his personal feelings to resign him. I also liked the way that the segment ended with Punk keeping Hunter in the ring and then after Hunter told Punk that they all have to follow the rules or things will happen, Punk went through his rhetorical questions about what would happen to him. I was not surprised that he played the Stephanie card and while many have brought up Hunter’s marital situation, Punk seems like someone who doesn’t care and will take it right to the line of what is acceptable.
I thought the segment at the end of the show was okay, but not as good as the opening segment. While the opening segment had that ‘Attitude Era’ style where there was an edge, this segment felt too 2009 to 2010 Raw for me. I don’t know if it was the presence of John Laurinaitis in the segment because I definitely thought that he took away from the interaction between Hunter and John Cena.
I thought Hunter’s line about how this wasn’t career day when Laurinaitis talked about how long he had been working for Vince. I was waiting for a comment about how Laurinaitis took Jim Ross’ job as head of Talent Relations, but it did not come off as well as I thought it could have. I was hoping that Hunter would have pointed out to Laurinaitis that John has always been the lieutenant while Hunter is the general.
I liked that Cena did not come out and cut an ‘I love working for WWE’ promo and he supported what Punk had said about the yes men in the company and said that Laurinaitis was the ultimate yes man. Cena also talked about his decision to punch Laurinaitis at Money in the Bank and how he was looking to do what was best for the lineage of the title so he is showing that he cares about doing what is right more than retaining the title.
The best part of the segment at the end of the show was when Cena talked about how he enjoyed punching Laurinaitis so much at the pay per view that he wanted to do it again tonight and how Hunter wasn’t going to stop Cena.
I thought Punk was okay at the end of the show when he figured that since Cena was not going to be stripped of the title that it had to be him.
The posing with Punk’s championship title and Cena’s belt was okay and the change of music from Cena’s music to Cult of Personality was funny the first few times, but by the tenth change, I think the sound guy was looking for Mark Henry to finish him off?
While you expected Cena versus Punk at SummerSlam because it is the number one pay per view of the summer, I was really hoping that they would hold this match off for a few more months. They could build the controversy over the title and even have Cena ‘defend’ the title while Punk does the same. It could cause Alberto Del Rio confusion over who to cash in against because should he risk the briefcase while there are two titles. While I don’t mind Punk being back on television so soon after Money in the Bank, I don’t like that he is going to wrestle to defend his title so soon.
The Divas
This is where the two surprises on this week’s show took place. The first surprise was that the Divas match went to a commercial break because the average Divas match on Raw or Smackdown usually doesn’t have enough time to mention who is in the match before it is over. The other surprise was that Beth Phoenix was the one who earned the title match against Kelly Kelly at SummerSlam.
Since the Divas battle royals have to be booked differently than the men’s battle royals in WWE because they allow eliminations any time the women leave the ring, you get some eliminations that are unexpected or look like they were accidental.
It was nice of Melina and Gail Kim to show up because I think Melina was eliminated while the bell was still ringing at the start of the match (I have to give Quincy Hughes from the message board credit for that one) and Gail’s elimination was done without the cameras filming it.
I was trying to figure out when Maryse was eliminated but apparently she is suffering from an injury according to her Twitter account (thanks to Cable V for forwarding that info) so it meant that our thirteen Diva match was down to twelve.
When there were a lot of Divas in the match, there really wasn’t anything that was noteworthy that took place. I thought the ‘why did they do that move’ spot of the match was when Alicia tried for a baseball slide when she was battling with Eve because she slid past Eve and went to the floor, eliminating herself.
I thought the finish of the match was good with Beth having a Bella on each arm, reminiscent of the old photo of Andre the Giant with multiple women hanging from his arms to show how strong he was.
The personal excitement of Beth winning was enhanced when she had enough of Kelly Kelly stealing her spotlight by coming into the ring for what should become a new tradition in the WWE (if not all of wrestling) with the champion coming into the ring to hug their number one contender. Beth was not going to have any of Kelly’s good cheer and Beth decided to do what Kharma wouldn’t. It was something that I thought had to happen with Beth or Natalya which I am hoping will become the feud over the Divas Title.
One last thing about the Divas. Of the fourteen (which appears to be thirteen with Maryse’s injury) Divas who are active in WWE, please do not put them at the announce table with a microphone that can be heard by anyone else. With the overall commentary on the show lacking this week because of the three man booth, Kelly made you long for the bickering between Cole and Booker on Friday nights.
It looks like Alex Riley has moved on from the Miz
I was worried that since it appears that Rey Mysterio has replaced Alex Riley in his feud with the Miz that they were not going to capitalize on the reaction that Riley is getting. It looks like he is moving on to the United States title picture.
I thought Riley was okay with his promo this week, but it was better than the promo from Vickie or Dolph. Riley had some good points about how Ziggler has needed help to get the United States Title so what would happen if Vickie was not involved. Riley held his own with Ziggler and Vickie on the mic and he had a lot of poise in the ring.
I thought that Vickie was good during this segment and I loved how she tried to be polite with the first ‘excuse me’ but when the fans would not oblige, it was the old Vickie Guerrero demanding respect with a vintage ‘excuse me’. I don’t know if Vickie’s comments really helped Dolph’s cause because by mentioning all of the titles that Dolph had on Smackdown, it only reinforces that he has not achieved the same level of success since coming to Raw.
I liked that Dolph reminded us about his ‘follow that’ comment from last week. If this was while he was on Smackdown, I could see it meaning more but since he has not reached that level on Raw, people who did not see his work on Smackdown would not have any reason to believe what Ziggler is saying.
Maybe it is a pattern that you are a protégé of the Miz but when you finally get a singles push, you have to wrestle for the United States Title because that is what happened with Daniel Bryan last year.
This could be a good feud and I am looking forward to what they can do at SummerSlam if they make this match official. I think that Ziggler is more technically sound in the ring than Miz so it might help Riley even more than the Miz feud.
Would the last tag team in the WWE pull the plug on the Division?
I have lamented many times about the state of the tag team division in WWE and I don’t think it can go anywhere but up. With the typical pattern for a tag team in the WWE being 1) they have some success, 2) one of the members of the team gets jealous; 3) the team breaks up; and 4) the Tag Team Division suffers. You can replace number three with ‘someone on the team gets released’ as well. This has happened with Hart and Kidd, Barreta and Croft, Archer and Hawkins, Gabriel and Slater, and many other teams in WWE.
The Usos had a chance to break the mold and do something with their new entrance, but they were defeated relatively easily against the tag champs. They also had a team with Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov but over the last three weeks, Kozlov has had different tag team partners. While the issue has been discussed on Superstars because they aren’t arguing over petty matters, nothing was said about Kozlov handling his tag team partner wrestling with someone else.
This week’s match was too short to really have an opinion, but based on the length of the match and the ease by which Marella and Ryder lost, it was not a good match. It also did not help that if Otunga and McGillicutty were trying for the Demolition finisher, Otunga did not do an elbow drop.
The Three Man Booth on Raw
When Triple H brought back Jim Ross I was thinking that Ross and Lawler would do Raw while Cole would stay on Smackdown and work with Josh Mathews and Booker T where Josh would want to call moves but know that he couldn’t say much with Booker and Cole arguing for most of the show.
Instead we got a three man booth and it felt like the days when they had three different announce teams on WWE pay per views because of the brand split. While you have to suspend belief that Lawler and Cole can co-exist, you really have to suspend it to think that Lawler and Ross would want to deal with Cole together.
While it was not as bad as an episode of Smackdown where if they call five moves in the entire two hours (because Josh is unable to get a word in), there were very few moves called by Jim Ross. The positive of having Jim Ross doing the commentary is to get his announcing style and that includes having moves called while advancing storylines.
I hope that if they keep the three man booth, they will be able to incorporate more of what is good (Jim Ross’ commentary) into the program. If they cannot use Jim Ross properly, please considering making Cole exclusive to Smackdown.
Other Thoughts on the Show
Getting back to CM Punk for a moment, it is fun to hear Punk’s comments under his breath because he got in a number of good ones. When Triple H’s music played during the opening segment, Punk said that it must be time to play the game. Then when Hunter was going to leave at the end of the opening segment, Punk stopped Hunter and he commented that he enjoys listening to some Motorhead. It definitely helps to pay attention to Punk’s promos for those pearls.
I thought John Cena had the line of the night when he asked about John Laurinaitis’ skateboard. It was something I expected to hear from Punk, but it was definitely a great comment.
It may have been by default, but the best match of the night was the tag match with Rey Mysterio and John Morrison versus R Truth and Miz. Before I discuss the match, I want to talk about the pre-match segments with the two teams. I was not a big fan of the Mysterio/Morrison segment with Morrison flipping over Rey to give him his shirt. When I saw Morrison coming out from the background, I was partially hoping that Morrison would accidentally clip Rey. I thought the segment with Miz and Truth was better and I liked how Miz questioned Truth talking to himself and then at the end of the segment Miz is talking to himself. They were working together but they were not necessarily best friends. Truth made some good points about how Hunter wasn’t looking out for them because they were put into a tournament when Punk was already coming back to the company so it was a fraud
Getting back to the match, I thought there was some good action from all four men. It made sense for Morrison to want to get revenge on Truth and that he would go after Truth on the apron. I also liked that when he did it, it cost his team because Miz was able to take advantage of the situation. They did a good job working on Rey during the match and keeping him from making the tag, even thwarting Rey’s attempt to go through Miz’s legs to make the tag. I also liked that when Morrison missed Starship Pain after Miz pulled Truth out of the ring, Morrison landed on his chest instead of landing on his feet.
I thought Morrison got lucky on the corkscrew plancha before the commercial break because it looked like Miz had to move closer to the ring in order to have Morrison hit him.
Since Truth and Miz believe in conspiracies, would they be Jesse Ventura’s favorite tag team?
The Del Rio/Bourne match was okay but also too short. While Bourne got in some offense, Del Rio controlled the match. I liked the way that Del Rio worked on the arm throughout the match to set up the cross arm breaker. The use of the ropes for extra pressure on the arm as well as the slam while he had Bourne’s arm in a hammer lock was good and shows that Del Rio is working ring psychology into his matches. The only issue I had with the match was that it was not longer.
They were also able to continue the Del Rio/Kingston feud with the post match attack by Del Rio and Kofi coming out to make the save. I think if they give them time, this could be a good match.
I like that Josh Mathews got a lot of time on the show to do interviews. Maybe Josh should be called the Voice of WWE since he does interviews on Raw and does commentary on Superstars and Smackdown.
Recommended Segments: The CM Punk/Triple H segment at the start of the show; R Truth and Miz versus Rey Mysterio and John Morrison; Alex Riley’s promo.
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