WWE Raw results and reactions from last night (Dec. 26): CM Punk in Chicago

WWE Monday Night Raw last night (Dec. 26, 2011) emanated from Chicago, Illinois, and featured CM Punk returning to the scene of the crime for the first time since winning the WWE title at Money in the Bank at the very same Allstate Arena.

Before we get to the reactions to the show, it's time to give a shout out to the Cageside commenter who delivered the "Comment of the Night" in the Raw live blog thread. And that honor goes to chaggo, for chastising Rawuncutnxrated for bagging on Zack Ryders leg lariat finisher and in turn bringing to my attention what it should actually be called -- "You are hating the flying teabag? The most awesome finisher in the history of wrestling?" That's phenomenal. Seriously, if you aren't hanging out in the comments of the Raw live blog thread on Monday nights, you're missing out.

If you want full results from Raw tonight, click here for the running live blog. Time to get to reactions from the show:

• Sergio was in control of the Cageside Twitter account last night (cheap plug, go follow it, ladies and sirs) and one of his first reactions to the show was to say the following: "Oh, Johnny L, you are slowly but surely becoming one of the best parts of Raw." Indeed, Laurinaitis gets better and better every week. How awesome was it seeing him come out in Chicago with Punk's music and Punk's gear to do Punk's entrance? And then later on telling Punk, "you don't want any of this," with that goofy look on his face? Laurinaitis reminds me of a video you watch that shows a guy falling off his bike and racking himself on a rail that you laugh at the first few times because of how bad it is but the more you watch the less funny it gets. Finally, after like 10 viewings, the video is downright painful. But for some reason, you keep watching on a loop, this guy just racking himself over and over. You're not even enjoying it anymore but you can't look away. Then, after viewing it like 70 times, on the 71st replay it's suddenly great again. Then before you know it, you're laughing hysterically and the video is the funniest thing you've ever seen. That's Laurinaitis on Raw.
  
• Putting CM Punk in a Gauntlet match was a damn good way to use him on a show taking place in Chicago. Building to a possible match with Laurinaitis was also good. But the concept of this particular match is something I will always take issue with. The idea was if Punk beat three guys in a row, he would get a match against Laurinaitis but if Punk lost then whoever he lost to would get a title shot on Raw next week. I get it that WWE had to find a creative way to get a new number one contender but the concept of having a guy beat the champion to get a shot at the champion's title is just dumb. And because of the way it was set up, it didn't help the guy who ultimately won, which was Dolph Ziggler. The plus side? We get Punk vs. Ziggler next week on Raw to kick off 2012. "Match of the Year" forthcoming. I can't wait.
  
• Last point on Punk before I finally move on to everything else: he's normally really good about keeping kayfabe in his matches but when you're selling a knee problem, you can't just stop selling it in order to do your moves that involve the use of it. It's a minor issue but one Punk has avoided in the past and it hurt his match against Ziggler, which was far worse than the last time these two tangoed on Raw a month or so back.
  
• The John Cena vs. Kane storyline was exactly what I was both hoping for and wanting to happen. Kane wasn't exactly Cena's conscience, per say, but he furthered the idea Roddy Piper put out there that Cena needs to finally accept the fact that a lot of people hate his guts and it bothers him deep inside. If he does so, he'll be free; but that's the only way to be free. Essentially, Cena needs to stop denying how he really feels, which he does day in and day out. This was on full display earlier in the night when John cut one of the worst pandering promos I've ever seen, totally selling himself out for the Chicago crowd who was booing the hell out of him. It was horrible how much he was pandering, even using Eddie Guerrero to try to get over. It worked, to an extent, but he went five minutes just talking about Chicago and didn't even bring up Kane until he was so deep into the promo it didn't matter anymore. The execution of the Kane bit later in the night left a lot to be desired but if you just read the text, it was scripted beautifully. I love where they're going with this but they absolutely have to pay it off later or it will have been a monumental waste of everyone's time.
  

Thoughts from the rest of the show after the jump.

• Booker T vs Cody Rhodes was a fun match for what it was but neither guy looked on his game. The goal in this whole thing is supposed to be to make Rhodes look good and they didn't accomplish that last night. Booker going over clean sets up Cody to look better later on but if they keep coming out flat like last night, it won't make much of a difference either way. I'm confident they'll do just fine.
  
• I understand why Zack Ryder is kissing John Cena's ass every chance he gets but it's a terrible idea for WWE if they want him to keep the fanbase he grew organically during his period of time fighting just to get on TV. The dude went out and took the exact opposite route Cena did and now that he's turned himself into something, here goes WWE killing all his heat by making him look like a suck up to Cena, who may be the only guy in the company who shouldn't be putting him over, if that makes sense. I think it's possible WWE thinks they can make Cena's fans, Ryder's fans but a lot of Ryder's current fans are anti-Cena guys. Notice how Ryder seems to have less and less heat every week? This might be why. Then again, his character seriously lacks depth.
  
• Alberto Del Rio specifically making reference to the fact that he plans on coming back "more vicious and aggressive" was a line straight from the mouth of the big bossman himself. One of the issues Vince McMahon had with Del Rio during his title run and subsequent main event push was that he just wasn't asserting himself enough, which was true. That's partially why he was working a lot stiffer before he got hurt with a legitimately injured groin.
  
• Speaking of injuries, can we keep these guys off TV once they legit get hurt? Mark Henry's heat is dead and six feet deep by now. If he was so injured that they felt the need to take the title off him, why the hell is he still being trotted out on television, both Raw and Smackdown? Not only that, they're booking him horrifically. They actually scripted Henry to do a run-in on Big Show's match against David Otunga. Can you believe that? They scripted a guy to do something called a "run in" when said guy has a bad groin injury and can barely walk to the ring. It took him 10 minutes just to get down the ramp. It was the worst run in I've seen in years. Henry looks like a joke now after months of success as a badass heel champion. It's too bad, really. But we knew it couldn't last forever.
  
• So how about the new World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan, huh? Boy, that guy is really great. Well, I think he is. I wouldn't really know because he was given about three seconds of screen time and the only thing he did was distract Henry, who was distracting Show, who ultimately was distracted by Otunga, who took a beating. Horrible booking for the Smackdown guys. No one looked good, least of all the guy who is holding the title and, not coincidentally, got the least amount of screen time.
  
• The Miz is still terrible. Really terrible. Not at all looking forward to Miz vs. R-Truth for the next however long they run with it.
  

This was a weird show overall. It wasn't good, necessarily, but it wasn't bad. It did a few good things, like the advancement of the Cena storyline and John Laurinaitis being awesome, while doing some bad things, like making the Smackdown guys look like complete donks and having a guy beat the WWE champion to earn a shot at the WWE title.

I give the show a solid C because it was average. Some good, some bad. But that's enough from me. Time for you Cagesiders to make your voice heard with your thoughts and reactions to the show.