Cena/The Rock - Monday's Raw thoughts/review

Firstly, I’ve got some nice feedback which is really appreciated, its nice of people to take time out and just read a good old wrestling blog. Tumblr is a bit shit for things like this, its mainly girls posting naked pictures of other girls… I suppose if you’re into that kind of thing… Anyway, I’m in the process of setting up this blog letstalkprowrestling.blogspot.com … favourite/bookmark it!

The synopsis of last nights Raw was something along the lines of – John Cena confronts The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin appears, Sin Cara debuts and all the other fall out from Wrestlemania 27. It served up pretty much what was promised.

Triple H opens the show and well, he’s either forgotten that a supposedly gruelling match happened last night or he’s forgotten wrestling 101, SELL THE MATCH. Sure, he limps about eventually but it’s too little too late. “You’ll be back, and when you’re back, I’ll be waiting.” Will there be back-to-back Wrestlemania rematches between Undertaker and his opponent? I could definitely see it happening, although that just seems a little lazy creatively on behalf of the WWE. It’s interesting to note that HHH acknowledged their Wrestlemania 17 match in this promo so I think it would be difficult to think of a reason as to why, storyline wise, The Undertaker would grant HHH a third attempt at breaking the streak… Could we see a HHH vs HBK vs Taker at WM28?… It’s nice to think about, though I think the ONLY and I mean ONLY reason Shawn Michaels would break his ‘retirement vow’ would be to have one last match with his buddy Triple H. The seeds were sewn on the Raw before Wrestlemania.

JR’s commentary was nice while it lasted. One thing that I miss is JR’s nice use of silence. BBQ man allows the viewers at home to soak up the atmosphere of the live crowd by staying silent during entrances and promos, whereas Cole jabbers on unnecessarily. Having JR and King on commentary, if only for a short while, was a nice touch.

I’m mostly outspoken about this, but, I am entertained no end when it comes to Michael Cole’s arrogant asshole heel persona. I laugh out loud multiple times during broadcasts just at the ridiculousness of the things he comes out with. There is no argument that Michael –frickin – Cole (the guy that was raped by Heidenreich) is one of the top heels in WWE at the moment. That’s a testament to how well he has adapted to this role, or, is it a glaring indictment at the quality of superstar WWE has to offer in this transitional period?

I’ll tell you one thing, Booker T is AWFUL on commentary at the moment, just awful. He says some incredibly stupid things such as this gem from last night “Sheamus outweighs Daniel Bryan by 25 to 30 pounds” – There are no words. Your typical small child could figure out that he outweighs him by more than that. Does he listen to himself speak? He should. Booker continuously talks over his fellow commentators, the ring announcer and even wrestlers cutting promos. He needs to step up or spinneroony(!?!?!?) on out of there.

We got a VERY nice tag match between Rey Mysterio/Randy Orton vs Cody Rhodes/ CM Punk. Once again Orton gets the win. Cody Rhodes got some good offence in to continue him looking (fairly) strong on top of his Wrestlemania victory. This match was better than about 70% of the stuff we got at Wrestlemania, which is saying something.

AUSTIN… and the Tough Enough cast. They introduce themselves …one…by…one and its painfully slow. A “stun them all” chant breaks out, I proceed to piss myself. Fortunately, The Miz comes out to save the segment.  The Miz ridicules Austin and the Tough Enough cast…. “move buckwheat” gets a BIG laugh and becomes a worldwide trending topic on Twitter. Ok. Now this gets interesting, The Miz challenges Stone Cold to ‘one more run’ which gets a big ‘one more match’ chant from the crowd. More on this later…

Jobber entrance for Evan Bourne (I fear for his job this up coming ‘spring cleaning’) a throwaway match between him and Del Rio and another throwaway match between Morrison/Trish and Ziggler/Vickie…. A whole lot of nothing really… I hope to see everyone involved move on to bigger and better things in the run up to Extreme Rules.

We FINALLY get the Sheamus vs Daniel Bryan US title match, what is there to say about it? Was it given a nice 10-15 minute slot? No, infact it was barely 4 minutes long and Daniel Bryan gets buried even further. I’ve said it before but Bryan was putting on match of the night performances with Dolph Ziggler, Miz, and Morrison and carried Ted Dibiase to possibly the match of his career… Hell his initial match with Dolph Ziggler was voted 2^nd in the Match of the Year contest on wwe.com, coming just behind HBK vs Taker 2… fuck! He is over with the fans and has the potential to be one of the biggest stars in the WWE. Sigh.

Sin Cara debuts! He NEARLY tripped over the top rope and had himself a Shockmaster style debut (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kByD3cqlVHY for those who haven’t seen it.)  Still, he did a hilo from the FLOOR over the top rope (ho.ly!) and got in some impressive offence. Mistico goes right after the US title as well, WWE obviously have big plans for him… for now.

I do like Cena’s red shirt, might have to splash some cash on that. Just sayin’. Cena puts over The Miz quite nicely, saying that even though he relies on dirty tactics, he gets the job done, and that’s what its all about. The Rock claims he swallows or something? The big news is that John Cena vs The Rock. Present vs Past. Face of the Company vs Previous face of the company will go down in one year at Wrestlemania 28.

Now, I’ve seen various comments complaining that we have to wait a WHOLE YEAR for the match. While it looks stupid on the surface, stop and think for a second. The Rock has only just come back and while the ratings have spiked during his appearances… they haven’t really hit the dizzy heights of the attitude era. There are perhaps fans that haven’t watched WWE since that era and haven’t heard that The Rock has returned. Announcing the match a year early gives WWE and The Rock plenty of time to hype Wrestlemania and perhaps bring in a whole host of fans to the product that have since left. That’s the sugarcoated story, perhaps. In reality, The Rock has his film schedule and needs to tend to that as well.

Speaking of The Rock, how hypocritical have his promo’s been since he’s returned? ‘The Peoples Champion’ he certainly isn’t. Coming live via satellite multiple times during his ‘return’ and now he’s again going to disappear off the WWE radar busy filming future flops before returning on his white horse of bullshit this time next year. Cena’s promos AND shoot interview words have been BANG ON and this is coming from a big fan of both men.

Remember when I was discussing Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Miz? Can you just imagine if we had Steve Austin vs The Miz… at Summerslam… for the WWE title? I drool at the thought to be honest. We’d have the two biggest names of the Attitude Era competing at (what are supposed to be) the WWE’s two biggest events of the year against two of the biggest stars of this era. If that doesn’t generate massive buzz about your product, I don’t know what will. Steve Austin has recently been discussing a bit of a ‘wrestling itch’ with him coming back to oversee Tough Enough, this must surely have been heightened. It also gives us something big in between waiting for The Rock/Cena. Hell, you could even put Austin vs The Miz on the Wrestlemania 28 card as well. That already gives us potentially:

The Rock vs Cena

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Miz

HHH vs Undertaker

For Wrestlemania 28…… That would be an absolutely HUGE Wrestlemania and the ratings and buyrates would be stratospheric for WWE.

Do I THINK this will happen? Not a chance in hell. It is nice to think about though…

Until Impact!… Thanks for reading.

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