The Min Report – Monday Night Raw – 14th May 2012
Amazing episode of Raw this week!!! Probably the best I’ve ever seen!!! Ok, sarcasm over. No, it wasn’t great which as usual is a massive shame with a go-home show just 6 days before a PPV. This did nothing to really spike my interest in Sunday at all. I’ll be tuning to support Bryan and Punk of course, but I’m not convinced they are gonna get the time nor the screwy-less finish to really showcase them as always. Anyway, on with the crib notes…
Look who continues to stick his nose out…
Ignoring the fact that yes Trip is once again pushing himself to the forefront of the show/proceedings yet again (end of an era my arse), I enjoyed the opening segment of the show. Two great talkers in Trip and Heyman and both delivered here. Trip has built up the angle with Lesnar well here for whenever we get this match (we assume Summerslam, but could be earlier). They seem to be pushing the ‘took your ball’ approach so don’t be surprised if we get Austin/Lesnar at some point too – if they are going to continue these ‘legends’ angles then that’s your historical money match for next years mania for me, not Taker (and not Austin/Punk). It’s been more years in the making and for reasons we all know is the one we missed out on. Interesting that Mania 29 is in NJ/NY and it was in NY of course that Austin/Lesnar had their last confrontation at WM20 – there’s a story to be reminded of here if WWE want to use it.
Let’s start uniting some belts
Good to see WWE testing the water with Rhodes in the same spotlight as Punk/Bryan (the champ and the most ‘over’ star) in the opening match. Santino provided a nice aside. No he shouldn’t be a champ in this guise, but they are teasing a ‘unification’ meeting with him and Rhodes it would seem. I’d go for that. With so many belts around we know it’s all got too diluted – maybe it’s time for someone to have ‘all the marbles’ and finally elevate the importance of being the ‘secondary’ champ that WWE has failed to do in recent years with so many stop/start pushes. I think Cody is the right guy to do this, as long as ensure he looks like he can hang with the big champs too – the IC/US holders are supposed to be the automatic number one contenders to the major titles, so thought should look like a threat. Usual massive response to Bryan which is great to hear. Far better crowd this week, although still not great.
Would anyone remember Punk is the champ if he turned up without the belt?
Biggest shame of the show on this note is that we’ve had no real build for the WWE title match. The AJ segment was almost an afterthought to throw in an angle. Again, the angle should simply be a continuation of THE BEST IN THE WORLD stuff. Punk’s proved it against Jericho, now it’s time to go against Bryan. Most of us know they have history (and I gather WWE.com have covered this a little) but this will be lost on the casual viewer. Big shame. Side note here, to all those retards who still claim that people shouting “No” instead of “Yes” means Daniel Bryan isn’t over. You’re an idiot.
For imaginary creator’s sake WWE, get some structure!
Real interesting that on Smackdown we got a ton of matches with ad breaks in between and next to no other nonsense…then on the ‘premiere’ show we’re back to the WRESTLING being cut by ad breaks to allow time for nonsense. Where’s the balance?
Big thank you this week goes to…
Alicia Fox. For totally wasting 2 mins of my TV time. The entire match (can you call it that?) looked clumsy. Beth Pheonix looks totally confused about how to react to Leyla. I am too. She attacks Beth from behind having played the ‘Heel on the ramp’, then is all smiley and expecting crowd cheers. I’m so tired of the Divas division. If you can wrestle, let them wrestle. If they’re can’t but they’re fit, make them a valet. If you’re both, great. If you’re neither, send them home. It’s not rocket science.
WWE has no perception on the real world
Cole let us know that John Cena is one of the most ‘liked’ celebrities on facebook, with over 11m followers. That’s nice. Ignoring of course the fact that a massive majority only ‘like’ his page so that they can send abuse to him, or more to WWE via him. The same applies his followers on twitter. Again, revisionist history WWE style, and of course ignoring that Cena’s actual core fanbase are all too young to have a facebook or twitter account unless their parents are a dumb as Cena’s outfits look. Add to that another another Make A Wish promo to please the sponsors etc. Heart warming yes, but bore off with this irrelevant horseshit please WWE.
The continuation of The Paul White Debacle
So, we got an announcement that Kane v Ryder would be a pre-show/dark match for Sunday. Weird that this should a) be a bigger match given their history and had they dealt with the story properly, and b) that they are promoting pre-show matches rather than matches on the card of which they seem to be lacking at the moment. Anyway, we got Show v Kane as the set-up to a showdown with Big Johnny, ending in a chokeslam being ‘sold’ as if it was a clotheslines after an awkwardly timed interruption from JL. Show clearly said sorry and JL claimed not to have heard him even though he was a foot away and Show was using a mic. Now I’m for equal opportunities but clearly this is not in the pro column for choosing deaf people as figures of authority. At least I guess we now know why JL has been part of so many crappy booking decisions – he physically cannot hear the fans. We also got some genuinely horrible acting from Show (And after his amazing movie career too. I’m shocked). The look on Show’s face said more ’emotional wank’ than ‘sad to be leaving’.
Brodus Clay
This is starting to be an advert for what happens when yanks try to ‘do’ irony. I assume Brodus’ character is supposed to be ironic now, because still it’s going nowhere. It’s so lost, someone actually needs to call his Momma to find him. Contribution to fan interaction aside, I for one would currently not getting tired of kicking this guy in the throat. That said, nice change to get a 6-man tag over a standard tag. Shame about Vicki’s choice of attire yet again though. With her red dress, bloated appearance and pasty complexion, she resembled a used tampon that had been left out in the rain. My eyes! My eyes! Credit where it’s due, I liked the execution on the finish and Dolph’s staggeringly good sell of Brodus’ headbutt once again.
It’s the WWE Rewind everyone!
You know, cos they’d don’t spend enough time reminding us of stuff when they could be showing us new stuff do they? This week it was broght to you by Denny’s – The American Diner that’s always open. Nice to know Denny’s has something in common with Kelly Kelly’s legs isn’t it.
Sheamus on commentary
Nice to see the champ on commentary while contenders duke it out to stake their worth so to speak. I’m all for more of this. Sheamus says it was a pleasure to see King, but wasn’t so keen on Cole. I guess he’s sick of cole seeing that’s all he had to eat as a child. Yes, that’s an Irish joke, and given that I have an Irish connection I’m allowed to say it too. Up yours. I like Sheamus on the mic when he’s not being given crappy Irish folk stories to tell too. I also loved the “That was my W” shout from Orton – great to know that some stars still care about wins and losses eh? We’ve certainly been trained not to for sure. General comment at this point on Sunday’s Fatal 4 Way – I like how this has been built ‘mainly’ in and around the ring. Lot’s of focus on Orton and Sheamus clearly, which leads me to think either Jericho or Del Rio will walk away with the belt, leaving Orton and Sheamus to feud over whose fault the loss was. Sheamus has really suffered from the BryanMania hangover as I said last week and never really got any traction as the champ. Jericho to win for me, with a Del Rio face turn to chase him for the belt. That would work for me. Let’s face it, with Sin Cara nowhere and Rey still taking idiot pills it seems, they need this guy for the Latino market.
Did Cena hurt his arm or his head?
I only ask a) because this is one massively fucking amazing recovery from the not medically-cleared, arm drained twice a day guy we saw last week. Total no sell as we’ve come to expect from Cena here, even going so far as to continually over animate his ‘injured’ arm; and b) because the change in vocal delivery can surely only come from someone with memory loss. What on earth was this utter shambles of a segment? JL didn’t know how to react to cartoon Cena who jokes and voices were totally ricockulous, and the contradiction in how Cena is treated for mockery over how Big Show was is just stupid (although clearly this has set the stage for Show to interfere at OTL as he can’t be fired if he already is – i.e working with JL all along). Awful puck gag to finish too. Just awful. Without a doubt the worst segment I’ve seen in a very very long time. Two funny things about this though. Firstly with all the new stipulations, no one is allowed at ringside – trust me no one wants to be for this match WWE, and that includes the fans. Secondly, it’s always nice to see Cena get a slap in the face. After all
Right, I’m off to teach Brodus’ Funkadactyls some more inappropriate dance moves to do in front of children.
Until next time, I’m Simm Minogue. I’ll still be him next time, but you know what I mean…
