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411 Instant Analysis 03.11.13: WWE Monday Night Raw

March 11, 2013 | Posted by Ben Watters

Hello again everyone and welcome to 411mania’s Instant Analysis of Monday Night Raw! Once again, I’m Ben Watters and I’m here to give you immediate thoughts on tonight’s broadcast. We’re full steam towards Wrestlemania with only 4 weeks to go so I’m pretty hyped to see what’s on tap for tonight. Without further rambling, let’s get going…


SEGMENT ONE: WWE Pays Respect to Paul Bearer

Nothing much I can say here. A fitting and classy tribute to a great man. Rest in Peace.

Rating: Not Really Rateable

SEGMENT TWO: Undertaker Pays Respect to Paul Bearer

Whoa. This was a bit edgy. And not in the good way. It wasn’t overly so and Punk didn’t totally disrespect Paul Bearer with his comments, but it was very close to the mark. It didn’t even draw much of a reaction either, so it came off a bit flat. The Undertaker tribute to Paul Bearer was very classy though, while it lasted. Oh, and why the fuck didn’t they air Kane coming out to attack Punk?

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

SEGMENT THREE: Seth Rollins vs Big Show
Match Result: Big Show via DQ

I was worried when this match was announced, not going to lie. But it came off as a great segment. It was essentially another impressive Shield beatdown, but with a twist and some sweet spots thrown in. Big Show looked strong from this and so did the Shield, so everyone’s a winner. And my word, can Roman Reigns hit a damn good spear.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

SEGMENT FOUR: Daniel Bryan vs Dolph Ziggler
Match Result: Dolph Ziggler via Zig Zag

Cole is absolutely atrocious tonight with his move calls – just sayin’. Although that’s really the only complaint here – a great match between these guys as always. Some particularly vicious kicks from D Bryan, a sweet top-rope backdrop reversal from Ziggler and an energetic finish. Ziggler also picked up a win that he desperately needed and the entire stable got a rare chance to look dominant with the post-match beatdown. Good stuff, but don’t expect Ziggler to get this treatment again for a while – this was a one-off. His regular poor booking will continue next week.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

SEGMENT FIVE: Tensai vs Fandango
Fuck it, I don’t care – I really enjoyed this segment. I was a bit worried they’d wear Fandango’s ‘refusal to wrestle’ gimmick down to the ground and people will probably say that they have. But I think they did enough here to keep it fairly fresh – Curtis was golden again on the mic and I’m somewhat of a Tensai mark even though Brodus is dragging him down. I expect hate for this paragraph.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SIX: New Age Outlaws vs Team Rhodes Scholars
Match Result: No contest?

Team Rhodes Scholars mockery of NAO’s entrance was absolutely tremendous. I’m very impressed at the New Age Outlaws’ residual overness as well – the crowd loved them tonight. I didn’t have high hopes for the match itself and I was damn shocked when Lesnar came out and destroyed everyone. Awesome. Heyman’s promo afterwards was damn good as well and I’m quietly hyped to see what the stipulation will be. I’m 99% sure it’ll just be a No DQ match, but maybe WWE will swerve us. MMA rules match, anyone?

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SEVEN: Mark Henry vs Kofi Kingston
Match Result: Mark Henry via Worlds Strongest Slam

Not the complete squash I expected, but Henry still destroyed Kofi right here. Looking badass as usual, though this did very much feel like filler.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

SEGMENT EIGHT: Ryback vs Heath Slater
Match Result: Ryback via Shell Shocked

The Bellas are back! And I couldn’t really care less! Still, bit of a swerve. Although I will say fuck the heel GM screwing over the heel tag team for no reason. WWE have been doing this shit for far too long now and it makes no sense at all.

Anyway, the match here wasn’t much – just a chance for Ryback to destroy someone. I guess I should retract my previous statements about Henry’s segment being filler as well. Seems they’re slowly building up this ‘power vs power’ feud for Wrestlemania, which I’m pretty damn hyped for. Both of these guys are built up like legit badasses and this could definitely be classed as a ‘Wrestlemania match’. Poor Drew though.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

SEGMENT NINE: Alberto Del Rio vs Antonio Cesaro
Match Result: Alberto Del Rio via Cross-Armbreaker

Eugh. That World Champion ‘midcarder-in-the-box promo’. No-one needed to see that. The match did redeem it though, although yet again a midcard champion is led like a lamb to the slaughter to a main eventer. My friend remarked how this was indeed a champion vs champion match which didn’t even enter my mind until he said it. Pretty sad. Still, as a segment it was a fun match with some really hard-hitting moves utilized by both guys. Makes me want to see a longer and more competitive match between these two as I’m sure they can put on an amazing match.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT TEN: John Cena vs The Rock Video Package

From WWE’s selective memory to Cena’s ‘bad year’ to the clear fact that this video package is desperately trying to hype up this feud when the Rock can’t work certain dates – I can’t give this a high score at all. The video package itself was very good (as you’d expect from WWE) and did make the feud seem epic – but WWE are just trying to patch up the holes in Cena’s last year and overall schizophrenic booking. If they’d made Cena actually have a bad year (and sell it like that) this feud would work about ten times better. But the fact remains that Cena went over Lesnar the month after losing to The Rock and spent the better part of the entire year no-selling and not mentioning the loss at all. I’m sure the match will be an epic spectacle when Wrestlemania rolls around but I just can’t get around the fact they’re trying to sell it as something it’s not.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

SEGMENT ELEVEN: Sheamus and Randy Orton vs Team Rhodes Scholars
Match Result: Randy Orton and Sheamus via Brogue Kick

Ultimate jobber entrance by Team Rhodes Scholars here. It’s official, heels don’t get entrances anymore. Sheamus coming out AFTER Orton and Rhodes Scholars – so impressive. Anyway, the match was just your basic tag formula and nothing impressive at all. And holy fuck, are we doing everything during commercial tonight? Shield beatdown exclusive on the app? I get that they’re trying to shill the WWE active app or whatever but seriously?

Rating: 5.0 out of 10

SEGMENT TWELVE: The Highlight Reel with The Miz and Wade Barrett

Laziest Highlight Reel set ever? Maybe, at least they joked about it. They didn’t joke about the movie trailers though. I joked about them. Because there’s been so fucking many tonight I feel like I’m drowning. I’m appreciating the slight ‘Hollywood Wade Barrett’ character though – Barrett should go full-on egomaniac with it though. I’d love to see it. Fucking bizarre ending to the segment though and the whole thing itself felt horribly off. Pretty terrible, even with the Maddox appearance.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

SEGMENT THIRTEEN: The Miz vs Chris Jericho
Match Result: Someone via DQ

Like the last segment, this whole match felt seriously lacklustre. Barrett was pretty funny on commentary but that was all I can really say for this one. Short, not particularly interesting and the finish was predictable. Although I’m not sure, did Jericho win by DQ? Was I just not paying attention or something? It wasn’t really mentioned as such.

Rating: 5.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FOURTEEN: Del Rio and Ricardo mock Swagger and Colter

This was fucking horrible. I like Del Rio and I like what he’s doing at the moment but not this. Never the comedy. No.

Rating: 3.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FIFTEEN: Sin Cara vs Jack Swagger
Match Result: Jack Swagger via Patriot Lock

Swagger gets an entrance?! Holy fuck. Swagger’s entrance is so badass it’s a criminal how we barely ever get to see it. Damn good promo from Colter here as well, cranking up the edgy-o-meter as well. Fun little match here though, but nothing too impressive. Was just here for the Colter/Swagger promo and the run-in save from Del Rio. Furthered the feud pretty well, so no complaints from me.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

SEGMENT SIXTEEN: CM Punk vs Kane
Match Result: Kane via Chokeslam

I feel Kane’s rage at Punk here and his respect for Bearer was very, very much undermined by that godawful Halle Berry and The Call hype/comedy segment. Still, an enjoyable hardcore match and a very, very classy shot when Kane and the Undertaker both showed their respect for Bearer at the same time. I’ll probably get complaints for saying this as well (considering I didn’t particularly enjoy the opening angle) but I thought the end beatdown from Punk with the urn was a great heel move. Obviously, it was edgy as fuck, but Punk got seriously heel heat for it, it was in character for him and it jumpstarted the Punk/Taker feud for Wrestlemania which was slightly lacking before-hand. I can’t really complain and I love having double-standards.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

FINAL THOUGHTS

Segment of the Night: CM Punk vs Kane

Trash Segment of the Night: Del Rio and Ricardo Mock Colter and Swagger (and all the fucking movie trailers)

Final Analysis: First 2 hours of this show were damn good, quite frankly. Consistently good, which is rare for Raw at this point. However, at pretty much the start of hour 3, the quality took quite the nosedive and only straightened out near the end of the show. Factor in the absolutely un-fucking-bearable amount of movie trailers and it evens out to an above-average episode of Raw. Bit of a shame, considering I seriously really enjoyed the first 2 hours. That’s probably the inherent issue with the 3 hour Raw format – there’s always going to be some shit segments and they drag the show down.

Verdict: 6.9 out of 10

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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