Raw falls upon Boxing Day this year. Will it be as special as Christmas Day, or do we get the post-holiday blues?
The show opens with CM Punk’s theme playing, and as Raw is in Chicago tonight, the crowd goes nuts. They go nuts in a negative sense, however, when it turns out that the man coming down the ramp is John Laurinaitis, wearing a CM Punk shirt. I love when the audience expectations are played with, and the payoff winds up being worth it. John, in his raspy monotone, feels the need to explain that the audience expected one thing, and got another, and that means that Laurinaitis is truly the most exciting and spontaneous GM. I truly love how he’s embraced his blandness and made it into a running gag. Not only is it funny, but it makes him a good foil to CM Punk: he’s not just a punching bag for Punk’s jokes, he’s going to try and one-up the Champion at every turn. The actual CM Punk comes out to confront John, and again calls him dull and uninspired. I think Punk needs a new line, though. It worked when he said Triple H and Vince were out of touch with the crowd, because, well, they were. But Laurinaitis’s bits of the last few weeks have been great and anything but boring. Not to mention that he’s embraced his general blandness as a character point, so to comment on it isn’t breaking the fourth wall anymore so much as just talking about the character.
Laurinaitis explains to Punk that his faux entrance was an homage to Punk, and furthermore, he’s going to give Punk a Christmas present: he gets the night off! In his hometown of Chicago. Come on, that’s brilliant. Punk is not impressed, and says that the only present John can expect from him is a kick in the face. I’m more lenient about Punk being the aggressive good guy than I am with Cena, if only because their character types and motivations are so different. Well, this rubs John the wrong way, and announces that if Punk wants to compete, he’ll have his fill: the main event is to be a gauntlet match against Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler, and Mark Henry. If any of our heels win against Punk, they will earn a title match the next Raw. I always love when the matches actually mean something. Punk agrees to this, but says if he does win against all three, then he wants a fourth match… against John Laurinaitis. This is a miss on two levels. One, Laurinaitis doesn’t have the same heat just yet against Punk to make us want a cathartic beating of him as we would with, say, Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon. Two, no one wants to see this match happen, and the idea of Punk trying to have a match the audience doesn’t want makes it seem like he has a disconnect, when the whole idea of his character right now is that he’s listening to the fans. Alas.
Speaking of matches I’m not certain I wanted, our opening match is Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes in a non title match. Now, when I say I’m not certain I wanted to see this, that isn’t a slight against Booker, who’s still in pretty solid shape. It’s just that I really want Cody Rhodes to get a storyline with someone on the current roster who can really help put him over. In spite of my hesitiation, though, this match was actually pretty solid. It reminded me a bit of the Jericho vs. Ricky Steamboat match, where the young heel is doing a ton of selling and most of the moving around so the older face doesn’t exhaust themselves. And even then, it wasn’t a one sided affair: Cody still got in some decent counters and offensive moments. The pacing was very good, though near the end, Booker looked noticeably tired out. What bothers me, though, is the ending, in which Booker beats Cody cleanly. Again, nothing against Booker, but this doesn’t really benefit Cody in any way. I was under the impression that he was the one that was going to be put over in this feud, and though I’m not certain this is the end of things, it doesn’t make him look that great in the long run.
A match up I am quite happy with, however, is the mixed tag match of Zack Ryder and Eve vs. Tyson Kidd and Natalya. Both Eve and Natalya continue to be underused commodities, and even the slightest hint of screen time is a good thing. Furthermore, this match doesn’t tie into the Divas of Doom angle that Beth and Nattie were doing, so it can be about actual wrestling and not about name calling. Also, first time I’ve seen Tyson Kidd in an incredibly long time. And, happily, this match is very good. Both members of each team get time in the ring to show off, and Eve and Zack have great chemistry together. Eve is amusingly tolerant of Zack, who, of course, thinks Eve is totally into him. The good guys win, and when Zack tries to go for a hug, Eve sort of just avoids contact. I like that the action isn’t made out to be bitchy or anything; it’s a good piece of comedic timing, and Eve does a good straight man in this comedy duo. All in all, a very good segment.
Backstage, David Otunga is complaining to Laurinaitis that he keeps getting beat up every time he’s on the show (hey, he’s a lawyer on a wrestling program. What was he expecting?) However, unbeknownst to David, the Big Show appears behind him, and indicates that Otunga is a wimp, and that Show could beat him with one hand tied behind his back. Laurinaitis, being the spontaneous fellow he is, takes Show up on this bet, and announce that will fight Otunga with one hand tied behind his back. I’m not looking forward to this, and neither should you.
We cut to another segment, this time in the ring, as Cena comes out to address the beating he took from Kane last week. There’s honestly not much to it, really: Cena just remarks that this generally makes him unhappy. But then, what else can you say, really? Cena then asks Kane to come out settle things, but instead, he gets the Miz. Miz tells us that everyone seems to have forgotten that he was the one who walked out of Wrestlemania as WWE Champion, fought the Rock, Triple H, and others of importance. As such, he wants to make sure that the last we see of the MIz in 2011 is him once again defeating Cena in a match. Luckily, Cena fights in his shorts, so he’s always ready for a match. But, sadly, the match itself isn’t that great. It’s only about two minutes of Cena beating up Miz, who finally has enough and gets himself disqualified. None too happy about the ending, mainly because Miz’s sudden mood swing about having a match is not only horribly inconsistent, but there’s not much point in spontaneously announcing a match and then just sort of not having it, especially given what happens next. Miz is about to walk away, when suddenly, R-Truth returns, who, we’ll remember, was sidelined by the Miz after Survivor Series. If they just wanted to have a Miz/Truth confrontation, why did they bother starting a match, and not just have Truth interrupt Miz mid-promo? Anyways, Truth, though fighting a heel, doesn’t appear to be a face again, as he’s still blatantly crazy, and begins to madly maim the Miz. Cena sort of just disappears. Just to make sure everyone is aware that Truth is still nuts, he tells Miz that he could end this right now, but instead, he’s going to drag out his revenge week after week. I’m really glad they didn’t just go the route of suddenly turning Truth face just because he’s fighting the Miz. It might be hard to root for a heel, even if he’s in the right in wrestling-morality terms, but so much work went into making his heel turn fantastic that it would be a shame to scrap it.
Our next match is David Otunga vs. the Big Show, who has one arm tied behind his back. As you might expect, things get slow pretty quick. Show, of course, can’t exactly hit a bunch of moves with one arm, and Otunga has a few problems of his own. I don’t know if it’s just because he was fighting a giant, and couldn’t really hit a lot of moves, but he really relies on punches and kicks. Unlike Sheamus, Otunga doesn’t have the same sense of timing or personality with his brawling, and it doesn’t helps matters that the match is a beat down, so all he can do is keep delivering those punches and kicks to a lifeless opponent, which soon becomes monotonous. Things are kept short though, Mark Henry begins to walk towards the ring, which never bodes well. It would appear that the Big Show has been set up, and with one hand not working, is about to receive a savage beating until Daniel Bryan appears at ringside to distract the World’s Strongest Man. I suppose that if I didn’t really want Show to Superman it and just crush everything in his path until he gets the title back, I would appreciate the effort to make Bryan more heroic in the eyes of the audience as he tries to bail out Show, just as Show did against Swagger. Show takes advantage of the situation, and although Henry manages to bail before getting his comeuppance, Otunga is still unluckily in the ring, and gets Chokeslammed for his trouble. As long as Show gets to Chokeslam someone, I’m relatively happy.
More unhappy news hits, as Alberto Del Rio is wheeled out in a wheel chair. I love that his wheel chair is gold; just because you’re injured doesn’t mean you don’t have class. It would appear that Del Rio tore his groin in last weeks’ match, which sounds ridiculously painful. Lest we feel too sorry for him, though, the Aristocrat calls the audience peasants and generally insults him. There’s the millionaire we all know and love to despise. I’m a bit bummed that Del Rio is out for a bit, especially as we get closer to Wrestlemania (his match was the best at last year’s event, no matter what Triple H tries to get us to believe. Sorry, Hunter: you’re match was just okay). There’s another bit where the Bella twins fawn over him, which is kind of pointless and not that funny, until Alberto tells them just to shut up. But, he tells us, he will be back, and more dominating than ever. I certainly hope so (#DelRioFan).
And now, on to our main event: a gauntlet match between CM Punk vs. Jack Swagger, then Dolph Ziggler, then Mark Henry (unless, of course, one of the men defeats him prior). The thing I usually don’t like about gauntlet matches is that there’s a 95% chance that the one man will beat the first two guys, and the only suspense is in whether or not he will beat the last. However, as we shall see, this match is better than that. The opening match of Swagger vs. Punk is good, but short. I would like to see a longer one on one match between these two, because if Punk wants to make the case that he’s the best wrestler in the WWE, I think Swagger could at least match him (if not personality wise). There’s a lot of grappling, and the speed is kept up very well. The ending is a bit lame, with Punk just kicking Swagger in the head to get the pin, but I guess you can’t hit a finisher every time, especially when you’re potentially having three matches in a row.
The second man up is Dolph Ziggler, who continues to be impressively awesome. Not only does he have the moves and personality, but he’s got a great sense of in ring timing. This match has a lot of near falls and fake finishes, and feels like you’re watching a wholly new match, rather than just the second in a series. There’s tension, there’s drama, there’s a back and forth of momentum; it’s very solidly put together. Things gets more interesting, though, as Vickie Guerrero blatantly puts Ziggler’s foot on the bottom rope to break up a near fall. In response, John Laurinaitis appears to talk to the ref and make sure that he knows exactly what’s going on, and sees to it that Vickie and Swagger are banned from ring side. Of course, while doing this, Punk has hit Ziggler with the GTS, and pins him, but the ref is distracted by the GM. This, I think, is the best piece of villainy that Laurinaitis has against Punk thus far: he’s blatantly screwed him over, but didn’t actually do anything wrong, and in fact is theoretically helping Punk by having Vickie banned. Also, having Laurinaitis get one up on Punk makes the rivalry and storyline more interesting: there are consequences to Punk’s actions, rather than him just coming out every week and insulting John without anything bad happening to him. Not to mention that his fight against authority is better when the authority he’s fighting against is credible, active, and not just a pushover. While Punk is staring agog at these proceedings, Dolph hits the Zig Zag from behind, and gets the pin, earning a title match. It’s just as well they didn’t get to the Mark Henry match, given his injury, as well as avoiding a squash match that no one wanted.
In a strange turn of events, however, the main event is not what we end the show on. The last Raw of 2011 will be seen off by Kane, who comes out to the ring to explain his actions of the past few weeks. There’s an awesome moment as it looks like Cena is about to rush the ramp to attack Kane, but Kane summons a wall of fire to halt Cena in his path. I’m a sucker for magical powers in wrestling; I don’t care if it’s gimmicky, it still looks cool. Kane tells Cena that he despises the message our hero is giving to people: Rise above hate. The Monster expositions about how all people are born of hate, and by exposition, I don’t mean synonym for talking. Kane just starts monologueing on the subject of hate. Now, I love Kane, and I love Kane’s promo skills, but this one really does drag on for a goodly while. Finally, Kane gets to the point that his new goal is to get Cena to embrace his anger, rather than fighting it, and gets the Chicago crowd, who are no lovers of Cena, to start a “Cena sucks!” chant. The interesting part here is that Cena, rather than bouncing back and schooling Kane, stays at the top of the ramp and looks almost disturbed and saddened. I really love that they’re playing with Cena’s character in this fashion: he’s always said that he doesn’t mind when people boo him, as he’s pro-freedom of speech, and yet over the last few months, there have been hints that this might be getting to him. Given that this is the first character development Cena has had in years, I’m very excited. I really like the guy, and I’m glad that he’s getting a very interesting story instead of just beating up the heel of the month.
And that was the last Raw od 2011. All in all, I liked the show. Most of the mid card matches were on the short side, but they weren’t that bad. The mixed tag match was fun, the Booker/Cody match was a pleasant surprise, Punk’s two matches were both good, and I like where they’re going with Cena’s character.
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