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411’s Instant Analysis 12.19.11: Monday Night Raw

December 19, 2011 | Posted by Sat

Welcome to this week’s Instant Analysis of Monday Night Raw. I’m your humble reviewer, Chad Nevett and the current world champions of the WWE are two indie vanilla midgets who will never draw shit. Think about that. Let’s get to it…

SEGMENT ONE: Celebrate Good Times! Come On!

This was just a nice, feel good segment. CM Punk, Zack Ryder, and Daniels Bryan taking a few moments to celebrate their victories last night at TLC and how all of them were almost impossible at one point or another. It was kind of cool to see the three men together like that — not quite a faction but easily able to become one. The involvement of the Miz, Dolph Ziggler, and Alberto Del Rio set up the match and was probably the best trio to challenge the three faces. It’s a pretty great collection of talent. The segment itself wasn’t spectacular, but it was enjoyable and sent a specific message about where the WWE is at the moment… even if it is for a short moment.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

SEGMENT TWO: Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett
Match Result: Randy Orton won via DQ
Match Length: A little over eight and a half minutes

The prospect of this match didn’t fill me with hope. Not so much for the quality of it, more of its usefulness. If Barrett won, why not just give him the win at TLC? If Orton won, why have him beat Barrett two nights in a row? The DQ result was about the best you could hope for, but still wasn’t exactly great. Their work together in the ring was good up until the finish. Orton needing to do some extra moves to finally hit the Hangman DDT was a really great ‘little thing’ to do. The post-match stuff just made me wish they’d given Barrett the win at TLC. Especially since the Wasteland (a move that others hate and I’m fairly indifferent to usually) looked horrendous when Barrett used it to put Orton through the table. I don’t know — even holding this match off until Smackdown seems like a better choice. Having it the night after the PPV took away from it.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

SEGMENT THREE: Beth Phoenix vs. Alicia Fox
Match Result: Alicia Fox pinned Beth Phoenix
Match Length: Pretty damn short

Well, that was awful. I know I always want to push people who botch moves and whose offense doesn’t look like it’s effective at all. This segment was an odd mix of bad wrestling and unintended comedy beginning with Fox’s fur hood thing (is it a fox?) moving to her botch and offense that involves making her opponent take the most basic of bumps there are and, then, an inane ‘promo’ that served no discernable purpose. Awful.

Rating: 1.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FOUR: Sheamus vs. Jinder Mahal
Match Result: Sheamus pinned Jinder Mahal
Match Length: A little under two minutes

So… they don’t know what to do with Sheamus right now, do they? Pairing him with Jinder Mahal again was an odd choice, because these two don’t seem to have much chemistry. Their work together is disjointed and choppy. Sheamus, usually energetic, seemed ready for the match to be over by the end. Hopefully, this ends these two sharing a ring.

Rating: 4.0 out of 10

SEGMENT FIVE:

John Cena, a guy who I like in general, does have a rare talent of taking something interesting and sucking all of the life out of it with his over-the-top seriousness and extremely literal way of communicating what’s happening. He’s like the most boring and sincere play-by-play man you could think of. But, that did allow Mark Henry to come out and be awesome until Kane came out to kill John Cena… Hell, his suffocating Cena seemed like he was trying to kill him. That he took Cena’s shirt obviously suggests that, not only will Kane not rise above the hate, he probably wallows in the hate. Two weeks in and Kane looks like a monster… and Cena was left looking scared and weak. Effective, albeit uneven segment.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SIX: Primo & Epico vs. the Usos
Match Result: Epico pinned an Uso
Match Length: A little under three minutes

A fun little tag rematch from Smackdown. Primo and Epico entering and exiting the ring by jumping over the top rope is pretty cool. These four guys have great chemistry and only seemed to be warming up when the match ended. Give these guys a bit more time and see what they can do. Also, maybe cut down on the camera shots of Rosa Mendes. We get it, she’s attractive… combine the above average amount of cutaways to her and Lawler’s skeevy commentary and it’s like the main attraction is a Diva no one has ever cared about. Goddamn.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

SEGMENT SEVEN: Santino vs. Cody Rhodes
Match Result: Cody Rhodes pinned Santino
Match Length: About a minute and a half

The backstage stuff with Rhodes and Santino was funny. Rhodes preaches the truth, of course. The match wasn’t much besides Rhodes beating down Santino… which is fine.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

SEGMENT EIGHT: CM Punk, Daniel Bryan & Zack Ryder vs. The Miz, Dolph Ziggler & Alberto Del Rio
Match Result: Daniel Bryan made Alberto Del Rio tap out
Match Length: Just under 14 minutes

This was an early Christmas present. A fun, entertaining match to end the show on. All six men brought their A game to this match. The opening bit with the faces taking charge and doing the moves onto the outside was damn entertaining. The heels dominating the latter part of the match made for some energetic comebacks. There was some strong fluidity to the match, especially at the end. Things flowed quite well and CM Punk even hit the Elbow Drop in a spectacular fashion. There wasn’t much that I didn’t like about this match.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10

FINAL THOUGHTS

Segment of the Night: CM Punk, Daniel Bryan & Zack Ryder vs. The Miz, Dolph Ziggler & Alberto Del Rio

Trash Segment of the Night: Alicia Fox vs. Beth Phoenix

Final Analysis: This was the sort of show where, when it’s over, you sit back, reflect upon it and come to the conclusion that it was an episode of Raw that you saw and probably won’t remember in a few days. The show began and ended well, had the odd nice moment in between, but was mostly a rather lackluster affair. There was lots of wrestling, although so little of it had the chance to really do anything. With the Royal Rumble not happening until the end of January and next week’s episode falling on the day after Christmas, this week and next look like a couple of filler weeks. Which is nice in a way — nothing fantastic or earth-shattering happens, but nothing too horrible does either. Solid and enjoyable.

Verdict: 6.5

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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