411's Instant Analysis 08.30.10: WWE Monday Night Raw

Posted by Ryan Byers on 08.31.2010

Bret Hart ran afoul of Kane and the Raw GM, Nexus took on Team WWE in an elimination match main event, Melina fought LayCool in an interpromotional women's match and more! Check out 411’s Instant Analysis for all the details!



WILLKOMMEN!

Welcome kids to a little fun we're going to have here at 411. The Instant Analysis column is the companion piece to 411 Live Pay-Per-View Coverage and features immediate reaction to wrestling pay-per-views. The focus in Instant Analysis is on first thoughts and initial reactions instead of play-by-play, with the goal of providing you with instant access to writers' thoughts on the show. We have decided to give these a try for some of the TV shows, so lets see how things work out . . .

SEGMENT ONE
Did I Accidentaly Get the Wrong Show Off My DVR?
Analysis: I get in a few minutes late, and Bret Hart and Kane are already in the ring when I turn on the television. Kane is delivering a monologue to Bret about leaving the Undertaker in a vegetative state, and Bret looks like he could not care less. Based on the reaction of the crowd, they agree, as it's dead silent in the arena. The problem with running what is essentially a Smackdown angle on Raw is that, even live, a lot of the fans aren't watching the show, so they have no reason to care . . . even when it involves perpetual crowd favorite UT. Anyway, Bret smarts off to the monster, as all semi-crippled middle aged men would do in this situation, and he gets goozled. The Hart Dynasty sans Nattie run out for the save but are dispatched quickly. If you're going to treat the Tag Champs like utter jay-brones, why not just send out a couple of nameless indy guys in "security" shirts instead? Anyway, the UNDERTAKER'S DONG goes off, and we've got a save from the Dead Man. He stares his brother down and Kane retreats. Not to be outdone by Taker's dong, Cole's ding goes off as well, and our guest GM books Bret versus Taker in our main event for the evening. If you couldn't tell from my snark, this sucked.
Rating: 1/2*

SEGMENT TWO
Kofi Kingston & Michael McGuillicutty vs. Kaval & Daniel Bryan Danielson vs. Mike the Miz & Alex Riley
Match Result: Miz pins Ki.
Match Length: Three minutes.
Match Analysis: Michael Cole wastes no time in dubbing Kaval and Bryan the internet dream team and claiming that their total height is 5'9". King says this is the three NXT rookies and their pros squaring off. I WISH that were true, because throwing LayCool in there with Kaval instead of Danielson would make this one of my dream matches. AmDrag runs wild on everybody early before getting caught in the SOS by Kofi. Riley takes over on Kingston, and I guess you could say he's getting Riley-ed up. No? Not laughing? Screw you, Lansdell would've loved that one. Eventually Kofi and Bryan get stereo hot tags, setting up Kaval's dragon clutch on Perfect's kid before Riley makes the save. Riley saves, and this sets up an INSANE running dropkick from the former Low Ki on Perfect's kid. He follows that with the kappo kick and the warrior's way, but Miz sneaks up and pins him with the Stroke. I'm not a fan of the finish there, because, even though Miz is clearly the biggest star of the crew, if the point is to get over the NXT finale tomorrow night, you may as well have the guy who you want to win that show get a victory over the guy that you want to lose. After the bell, Riley distracts Bryan and Miz takes him out with the briefcase. The post-match angle was decent . . . the match was nothing to write home about, but at least it was wall-to-wall action.
Rating: **

SEGMENT THREE
Melina Perez & Eve Torres vs. Michelle McCool & Layla El
Match Result: Perez pins McCool.
Match Length: One minute.
Match Analysis: Michael Cole makes fun of Snooki on commentary early on. Screw you, Cole, Snooki is the best heel on television right now. As far as the "match" is concerned, it's literally about two moves. When we're done, LayCool challenge Perez to a title unification match at the next pay per view, which Melina accepts so long as it is a . . . lumberjack match? What? The Raw girls come out to flank Melina to close the segment. Lame match, and, it seems like I say this every week, but I'm tired of gimmick matches being booked just for the sake of booking gimmick matches. A lumberjack match would work if there had been an angle where McCool and El were running from Melina week in and week out and the 'jacks were necessary to even the odds, but that's just not been the case.
Rating: DUD

SEGMENT FOUR
John Morrison & R-Truth vs. Dashing Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre for the number one contendership to the WWE Tag Team Titles
Match Result: No contest.
Match Length: One minute.
Match Analysis: Damn. I was hoping that, as part of the Raw anniversary celebration, Rhodes would reunite with his former partner Hardcore Holly. A cheap shot by Cody leads to the match turning into a four man brawl almost right off the bat, and the referee calls for the bell for a double DQ within fifteen seconds. The brawl continues afterwards, with Killings getting in a nice tope on Cody and Drew WAFFLING Morrison with a kick. Johnny responds by tackling the Scot into the GM's laptop podium, and that's the end of the segment. There were a couple of awesome looking spots in post-match stuff, but, by and large, there was nothing to this one. Rhodes and McIntyre seemed like a bit of an odd pairing, but, otherwise, everybody involved is talented enough that I wouldn't mind seeing this result in a three-way match with the Harts at the pay per view.
Rating: 1/2*

SEGMENT FIVE
Bret Hart vs. The Undertaker
Match Result: Never started.
Match Length: Not applicable.
Match Analysis: From Bret's physique, it looks like he did not get that much advance notice of his appearance on this show. Before anything happens, Wade Barrett barges in and goes after UT. He's immediately clotheslined out and made to look like a total chump. However, seconds later, the lights go out and Kane is in the ring but Bret Hart is gone. The announcers don't even mention where Bret might have vanished to. The lights go out again just as Taker gets an apparent advantage, and Kane is gone but the rest of Nexus is hitting the ring. The Undertaker kills them all, but the lights are out one more time and Kane is on the entrance ramp with Barrett hitting the lame-o-plex on the Dead Man. That sets up the 450 from Justin Gabriel. In an interesting spot, Taker tries to sit up after the assault but crumples back to the mat in mid-move. I get people vehemently disagreeing with me every time I criticize how WWE has handled the booking of Nexus, but I wasn't a fan of how they came off here. Again, they're supposed to be a legitimate, dangerous force of badass heels, but they essentially got taken out five-on-one here and only retook the advantage when they were helped out by Kane. It would be one thing if the other four were goofs and Barrett changed the game when he ran in, but the fact that Wade was taken out first and then all of his flunkies were dispatched as well made them come off as complete and utter jokes. That's been the problem with the Nexus push from the beginning. Some forces in WWE seemingly want to put them over but others are afraid that they'll offend existing power structures if they put them over in a way that isn't a total fluke, so the result is a bunch of segments where they technically win but only win because they got lucky or somebody else did the dirty work. The one guy in the modern era who truly got over like gangbusters within less than a year in WWE was Brock Lesnar, and do you know how WWE got him over? They didn't get him over by having him win a bunch of matches by count out or having him tap out to John Cena on pay per view. They got him over by having him defeat progressively harder opponents and defeat them in a dominating fashion. That's the kind of push that at least one member of Nexus needs, and I can't for the life of me understand why nobody has figured that out yet.
Rating: DUD

SEGMENT SIX
Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne
Match Result: Swagger wins by ankle lock submission.
Match Length: Three minutes.
Match Analysis: This match was completely ignored because Alberto del Rio got to make his full entrance as the two men were wrestling, complete with Bentley, waterfall pyro, and Spanish language ring announcer. He cut a promo about taking out Rey Misterio and sounded pretty damn good in the process, after which he attacked Evan Bourne and applied his cross arm breaker. Mark Henry ran down for the save. Henry needs to turn heel and get repackaged/repushed, because this deal where he's the first babyface that a new heel gets to take out is fairly tired right now. This was essentially a three minute long commercial the message of which was, "Please, for the love of god, watch this Del Rio guy on Smackdown." Alberto looked like a star in front of many viewers who were probably seeing him for the first time, so in that regard it was a success. However, with the match, Del Rio's entrance, and Henry's run-in all crammed into three minutes, this felt as overbooked as some of TNA's worst offenses . . . and we all know how I feel about TNA.
Rating: *

SEGMENT SEVEN
Mother Punker
Analysis: CM Punk is out with the now Serena-less Straight Edge Sausage-fest. Because we were coming off of a retrospective video package of the Mick Foley/Rock "This is Your Life" segment (in which all of the good jokes were cut because of the PG edict), Punk asks if we miss the Rock. He says that we shouldn't, because Rocky, like the majority of Raw superstars, promoted poor family values. He highlights the worst examples of this, including HHH invading Randy Orton's home from 2009, John Cena throwing Edge into Long Island Sound from 2006, D-Generation X invading WCW from 1998, and Steve Austin giving Vince McMaon a beer-bath originally in 1998 and then again in a rehash segment in 2007. There are a lot of smarky in-jokes here, including Punk namedropping Katie Vick and saying that he would never throw another wrestler into a body of water. For the 95% of you who don't get it because you weren't watching the show at the time, that's supposed to be funny because Punk threw Chavo Guerrero, Jr. into the Gulf of Mexico in a very similar angle when the two of them were feuding on ECW. Eventually Punk asks the crowd if he'd like to see Steve Austin spray HIM with beer, and Austin's music plays but it turns out to be a ruse by the Straight Edge Savior. The Chicagoan decides that he's going to play one more clip, this time from a "good show," and it's Brock Lensar superplexing the Big Show through the ring. Punk says that he doesn't know who the other guy in the clip ways but that Show sure was looking fat. Naturally, BS intervenes. Punk calls him "Captain Insano." For the 95% of you who don't get it because you were six at the time the movie came out, that's supposed to be funny because Big Show played a character by that name in the Adam Sandler film The Waterboy. Show does a Hulk Hogan impression, and, eventually, the wrestlers come to blows. The Giant stands tall at the end of the confrontation. I really couldn't stand this segment. I don't know if he wrote his own material for this or whether he was fed a script, but Punk's attempts at humor came off as a really pathetic effort to get over with people who write and read columns like this one. One sly reference to the past can work and get some chuckles out of yours truly, but constantly alluding to obscure pieces of WWE history makes you come off as desperate to be perceived as "cool." Things get even worse when you claim not to know who Brock Lensar is when virtually everybody watching this show is aware that Lesnar is a significantly bigger pay per view draw and mainstream star right now than virtually anybody in WWE with the possible exception of John Cena. I'd have to reflect on this a bit more before coming to a final conclusion, but, right now, I feel like this would rank in my ten worst Raw segments of the year if I had to pick them today.
Rating: -**

SEGMENT EIGHT
Sheamus, John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge, & Chris Jericho vs. Wade Barrett, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, Michael Tarver, & David Otunga in an elimination match
Match Result: Nexus wins with Barrett as the sole survivor.
Match Length: Twelve minutes.
Match Analysis: Jericho immediately walks out on Team WWE for the first elimination . . . and then Edge shoves down referee Charles Robison to get intentionally DQ'ed. That puts Cena in the ring against Michael Tarver, and they go at it for a few seconds until Sheamus tags in. I figured that the Irishman would be walking out as well, but he goes toe-to-toe with both Tarver and later Heath Slater. David Otunga is the first Nexus member to get in any offense of substance, but even he spends the majority of his time in the ring with the champ getting beaten up. Then, in a sentence that I never really thought that I would type, Nexus starts getting the heat on Sheamus. Eventually the champ gets caught in the heel corner and is beaten on by all four men before Slater catches him from behind with the sleeper drop and gets the three count for the elimination. Almost no time passes before Cena eliminates the One Man Rock Band with the FU. Now that was ridiculous. First of all, if you're going have somebody from Nexus pin Sheamus, why wouldn't it be Barrett so that you can add a little bit more heat to the title match at the pay per view? Furthermore, if you're going to have somebody pin the WWE FREAKING CHAMPION, why isn't it somebody that you're going to push instead of somebody who will immediately be fed to John Cena for a meaningless pinfall? Otunga and Gabriel start picking apart Cena after a while, but John responds with a drop toe hold out of nowhere and an STF to force Mr. Hudson to tap. As Cena is rolling out of the STF, Gabriel immediately catches him with the 450 to pin WWE's golden boy. Gabriel is RKO'ed and pinned. Tarver is RKO'ed and pinned. Barrett sneaks up from behind on Orton, however, and hits him with the lame-o-plex to score the decisive elimination. As I mentioned during the body of the review, I wasn't all that thrilled with how some of Nexus' eliminations were positioned, but at least the right guy was getting his hand raised at the end of the match and at least he was getting it raised as the result of a relatively clean pinfall. That's a lot more than what we've been able to say about Nexus during the majority of their run. As far as the in-ring action itself was concerned, it was pretty pedestrian due to the lack of experience of most of team Nexus, but at least the finisher chain at the end and some of Sheamus' interaction with Slater were good enough to take this one up slightly above average.
Rating: ***

FINAL THOUGHTS

Segment of the Night: The main event, though "Segment of the Night" doesn't mean much this evening.

Trash Segment of the Night: CM Punk's Def Comedy Jam.

Final Analysis: This . . . show . . . sucked. For the 900th episode of Monday Night Raw, the majority of the focus actually felt like it was on Smackdown characters and angles. Though I can understand WWE having some desire to feature SD on this show in order to push the Friday night program's move to SyFy in about a month, putting so many Smackdown wrestlers on tonight's program hurt the Raw show because the Raw fans in the live crowd didn't care about most of them, and their lack of enthusiasm really came across on television. The one Raw angle that did get some play was Nexus' continued involvement with the main eventers, which was a mixed bag. Barrett did wind up getting put over strong at the end of the evening, but, prior to that, he was a goofball who could barely get off offense against the Undertaker in a five-on-one scenario. Even the nostalgia, which sometimes saves a show like this one, wasn't particularly strong here. There were segments throughout the evening focusing on "classic" Raw moments, but there were a lot of major events ignored and at least half of what was higlighted was from the last four years or so of the program's seventeen year run. Top that all off with the fact that there wasn't even one particularly good match throughout the course of the evening and the fact that the majority of the bouts were screwjob backdrops for angles that weren't particularly strong, and you've got one of the worst episodes of Raw since I started doing this column.
Verdict: 2.5

411 RATINGS SCALE:
0 - 0.9: Torture
1 - 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 - 2.9: Very Bad
3 - 3.9: Bad
4 - 4.9: Poor
5 - 5.9: Not So Good
6 - 6.9: Average
7 - 7.9: Good
8 - 8.9: Very Good
9 - 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect

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