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411’s Instant Analysis 04.09.12: WWE Monday Night Raw

April 9, 2012 | Posted by Sat

Welcome to this week’s Instant Analysis of Monday Night Raw. I’m your humble reviewer, Chad Nevett and hopefully this week’s show will prompt a review that prompts comments like last week. I enjoyed that and I love you all. Let’s get to it…

SEGMENT ONE: Cena and Lesnar Kicks Off Big Time

I really wanted to love this. I liked John Laurinaitis introducing Brock Lesnar, I liked the talk about bringing ‘legitimacy’ back to the WWE, I loved John Cena coming down and instead of doing his usual promo shtick, just smacking Lesnar in the face and leading to a brawl. What I couldn’t get behind is the utterly randomness of the locker room clearing out to separate them? Why? Why would that happen? I get the officials, obviously — and I get the logic behind what the WWE was trying to accomplish here. If the locker room comes out, it seems big. But, why would all of those guys come out? Why would heated rivals stand side by side to break up a fight… in an environment where fights happen all of the time? I know it’s too much to ask for a little bit of in-story logic and consistency… The bloody mouth was a great touch, though. Like Lesnar’s return last week, I like the idea but question the execution…

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

SEGMENT TWO: Santino Marella & Brodus Clay vs. Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger
Match Result: Brodus Clay pinned Dolph Ziggler
Match Length: Seven minutes and 45 seconds

And a new record for the longest Funkasaurus match to date! Was the only one who wanted Clay to yell “How ’bout that main event push, Ziggler?” after he finished pinning him? I dug this match. Nice to see Clay begin to transition from the squash matches to something more like a ‘regular’ match — and using Santino as a tag partner to do so is smart. And pinning Ziggler does make Clay look better. Decent stuff.

The backstage stuff with Cena and Laurinaitis was good. It was short, but that may be one of Cena’s better promos in a while for changing it up a bit while still staying in character. His bloody/messed up mouth gives him a weird charm.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT THREE: R-Truth vs. Cody Rhodes
Match Result: R-Truth pinned Cody Rhodes
Match Length: About a minute and a half

Last week, this concept worked well as a punctuation mark to Rhodes and Big Show’s WrestleMania match. This week, it just seems lame and lazy. So, now we get a build where we want Rhodes to rise up and beat the Big Show after weeks of embarrassment?

And, then, there was the introduction of the Three Stooges to tonight’s show… well, they’re celebrities on Raw. This is pretty much what you’d expect given that description.

Rating: 4.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FOUR: Lord Tensai vs. Yoshi Tatsu
Match Result: Lord Tensai won via killing Yoshi Tatsu
Match Length: About two minutes

A big improvement over last week. The pace was quicker, the moves flowed better, and the ‘knockout’ finish to the match was sold better by Yoshi Tatsu not getting up twenty seconds later. It was the same sort of thing as last week, but tweaked and a lot of the weaker elements of last week’s match eliminated to make Tensai look even more dominant. I just wish Yoshi Tatsu was higher in the company, so they would actually build a feud here instead of getting rid of him as a threat immediately. Ah well…

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FIVE: WWE Championship Match – CM Drunk (C) vs. Mark Henry
Match Result: Mark Henry won via disqualification
Match Length: Less than a minute

The pre-match promo work was absolutely stellar. Punk’s build to him talking about how his only thought last week was that he smelled like his father used to was masterful. It was big and full of emotion. Jericho, on the other hand, becomes more loathsome each week. Just piling on the insults and making us hate him more. By the time Punk said he just wants to kick Jericho’s ass, I wanted to see him kick Jericho’s ass.

The match was short, but great storytelling. Punk was more vicious and aggressive than I can remember seeing. Those initial attacks on Henry were dominant until Henry knocked him from the ring and, in another act of extreme aggressive, Punk nailed him with a monitor. And, then, Jericho came out to, somehow, one-up himself from last week. This was disturbing. This was pure humiliation in a way that no squash match has ever touched. Complete physical domination and embarrassment. Damn good stuff.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SIX: Alberto Del Rio vs. Zack Ryder
Match Result: Alberto Del Rio made Zack Ryder tap out
Match Length: A little less than a minute and a half

Huh. Ryder dominates. Del Rio counters and applies submission hold. Del Rio wins. Not much to this. I didn’t particularly like this, but I didn’t hate it either. I didn’t care. That’s the worst reaction, isn’t it?

Rating: “What number out of 10 does ‘bored apathy’ fall under?” out of 10

SEGMENT SEVEN: The Three Stooges, Hulk Hogan, and Kane

This was what it was. Will Sasso’s Hogan impression was good. And then he was killed by Kane. I’m not sure what I was even meant to think of this. It wasn’t really funny or entertaining. It’s like they really had no idea what to do with the Three Stooges, so they did this. The movie got promoted and the WWE probably gained something. Cost of doing business…

Rating: 5.0 out of 10

SEGMENT EIGHT: Brock Lesnar Promo / “End of an Era” Reactions

Lesnar’s backstage promo was good. Brief, to the point, and got across everything you need to know about him in a very short time.

I always enjoy video packages of wrestlers talking up feuds or matches and this one for the Undertaker/Triple H was no exception. The Sergio Leone-esque music at the end (was it actually something Leone wrote?) was a great touch as well.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT NINE: John Cena vs. David Otunga
Match Result: John Cena made David Otunga tap out
Match Length: Around five minutes

Lesnar attacking Cena was a little pick-me-up after the dull match with Otunga. Otunga is showing more personality in the ring, which is good, but the match itself was rather mundane. Lots of weak punches and Otunga dominating until a quick comeback by Cena where Otunga didn’t even seem to put up a fight. The result was never in question, but… I do have to wonder, with John Cena now feuding with Laurinaitis, how soon before he and CM Punk are teaming up? An okay finish to the show, but a little anticlimactic after the previous Cena/Lesnar stuff.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

FINAL THOUGHTS

Segment of the Night: The WWE Championship Match and the pre- and post-match events

Trash Segment of the Night: Cody Rhodes vs. R-Truth

Final Analysis: An improvement over last week as they move away from following WrestleMania and towards building some new stuff, or, at least, adding new stuff to carryovers from ‘Mania. Punk/Jericho continues to be my favorite feud with fantastic work from both men and Mark Henry acting as a big distraction right in the middle of it. The Lesnar/Cena stuff has potential and they hinted at it with that opening segment — Lesnar brings out the fighter in Cena in a way we haven’t seen in a while. Not a home run show, but a good one.

Verdict: 7.5

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