WWE Raw results and reactions from last night (Feb. 20): A fresh John Cena

Pretty f’ing pumped for Taker/HHH now that it’s a HIAC match that’s a dream match for me, I didn’t think a match could top Rock’s return to WrestleMania but that might do it. I don’t think they will but I was worried for a second that they might break the streak when Taker brought up HBK

I really don’t see much of an issue with that. Its no different than when Cena and King got the crowd riled up to boo the living hell out of Vickie Guerrero, and I didn’t see a problem with that either. This is still a TV show where these guys are all playing characters. In any TV show, when the girl screws over the guy (and in this case, its 2 guys she screwed over), she gets portrayed as a ho.

How much extra scaffolding and supports are they going to have to build around the ring to support it during the opening matches. A buddy of mine has an extra ticket I was thinking of buying off of him but it is about 2/3rds of the way up. I don’t want to go to Wrestlemania and not see any of the matches because I’ll be looking through the Cell and all of the support stuff.

The battle royal idea I didn’t have a problem with, but the fact that 3 of the 10 guys had matches before hand made little sense to me. And Geno what you said about the tag teams is dead on. Especially if we have to see 10 matches a month between Epico/Primo vs the Usos.

I feel very much like the Punk/Jericho feud needs to pick up steam fast. Whoever thought we would be sighing at that one 40 days from WM, and getting more excited about the HHH/Taker match.

I do not think HHH is going to break the streak. But I think both guys are getting carried out of this one. If not, I’ll be surprised. Taker will leave 20-0.

Couldn’t agree more about the Divas. Pointless match when you just had a very solid match between Beth Phoenix and Tamina the night before.

Geno, loved your post about Santino being our funny guy. Santino IMO is the Duggan for this generation. Having them team up a few weeks ago was hysterical.

Cena made up for the beginning with his end. Can’t wait to see what the Rock says next week. Hope he starts the show.

All in all decent Raw. Good build for Mania except for Bryan/Sheamus

I was one of the guys saying that HHH changing his mind due to the HBK angle made no sense. So let me explain where I was coming from.

They have made two things clear when it comes to what motivates HHH’s decisions.

1: Business is more important than ending the streak
2. Being better than HBK is more important than business.

Therefore, by transitive argument, we are logically forced to conclude that being better than HBK is more important than ending the streak.

My point is: that doesn’t make sense, because ending the streak proves you are better than HBK. Isn’t that why HHH finally accepted the match after all? If he was so supremely motivated to prove he was better than HBK, he would have simply accepted Taker’s initial challenge several weeks ago.

So am I over thinking that?

I don’t want anyone to tell me that they killed Santino Marella’s heat by having Daniel Bryan beat him clean in a short match.

Don’t agree with this. Devalues a terrific match from EC just 24 hours later and the match served no purpose other than to put him in his place.

I thought this episode of Raw was disappointing. It had 2 awesome promo segments (Cena and HHH/Taker) but aside from that a good chunk of the show made no sense or was just filler with no bearing on Mania.

The tag match with Kofi/Truth made no sense. Why would those guys even try to compete in that match if they have a shot at Mania on the line later in the show? And yeah, the tag titles are completely worthless.

The segments with Sheamus, the Divas, and Bryan all seemed like unnecessary filler. I guess every episode will have some of that, but I was hoping for something more interesting out of Sheamus/Bryan.

Cena’s thing with Eve at the beginning has already been torn to shreds by many for obvious reasons.

I initially complained about Santino jobbing so quickly, but yeah, that was dumb on my behalf. That’s what Santino’s role is. That doesn’t hurt him at all.

The battle royal was a lame excuse to get Jericho in there with Punk at Mania. That entire segment was a trainwreck aside from Punk’s commentary, which was freakin’ amazing.

I’m not really on board yet with the whole Ace/Long thing but it was a decent segment and I am interested to see where they are going with it.

Fantastic promo with Taker and HHH. Whisper it quietly but this is gaining serious ground on Rock Cena now with the addition of Hell in a Cell. These guys are gonna put on one hell of a show to draw the curtain on one hell of an “era”.

Having said that boy was Cena good. The opening scene with Eve well…ridiculous? Yes. Offensive? Yes. A train wreck? Yes. Did I friggin’ love it? YES. Cena ended Sunday as Super Cena and entered RAW as a total, total d*ckhead. Wonderful. This is about as close as we’re gonna get to a Cena heel turn and IMO if this is continued it could potentially be better. Cena’s character added so many layers during that show. His promo aimed at the Rock? Meh. Good in places. You could feel his genuine intensity and his honesty was refreshing.

But annunciating “wrestling”? What? Come on now John don’t kid yourself.

Perplexing roles with Bryan and Sheamus. Their feud will hopefully pick up more on Smackdown. Nice to see Sheamus get a credible win against a tough opponent. Those complaining that he went over too quickly – time issues most probably.

Punk-Jericho. flop
Looks very rushed and neither of them are making much sense. You’re spot on Geno with:

“I’m the best in the world.” “No, I’m the best in the world.” “No, me.” “No, me.” “Let’s have a match at ’Mania to find out.” “Fine.” “Fine.”

You know what would save this? Give them 20 minutes in the ring with two microphones to cut a shoot style promo. For too long Punk has been taking smart arsed jibes from atop his ivory tower. Why aren’t the two best talkers in the company right now not being given time to go at each other. I like the idea of the “best wrestler in the world” feud but the execution at the moment is very tame.

Long/Ace. I like it. Perhaps building for a match like Trump-McMahon? They each pick a guy to fight for them at ’Mania. Winner becomes GM for both shows, loser is future endeavoured.

DAMN. Rosa Mendes is hot.

When women sign with WWE, they mainly get signed do to looks and not actual talent, There’s only a handful that’s went anywhere in the past 10 years. It just gets sickening to hear how people were praising Eve and Crossed Eyed Kelly for months and now that she’s being looked down on should come to no surprise. They always manage to deliberately be cruel to women unless you know or in a relationship with someone that’s been like Taker or happen to be a widow of a legend. Eve knew damn well before she signed with them just like everyone else for that matter that it was only a matter a time before WWE starts to make women look inferior so for anyone to say it’s screwed up the way she was treated is just being ignorant. Hasn’t history taught you people anything?

and this didn’t come off too well. But what I was getting from the Eve breakdown was that it was phony. Cena has supposedly seen her cry and scream for her life (what her involvement with Kane is has not been disclosed) but she just made it clear that all of that was an act.

So when she cries like that now people were suppose to think that she has been caught in her lie and now she is trying to garner sympathy but nobody should fall for it because she just got done telling everyone on TV that all of her previous attempts to garner sympathy was faked in order to manipulate John Cena and Zack Ryder for reasons unknown.

Granted this was poorly done but I saw the intent there.

Broskie before hoeskie? I was cracking up
Taking the mic and pandering the crowd for the chant? Cringe worthy.

Shooting on the Rock with passion? Got me fired up for the match.
Talking about how he has been “here” every day for the last 5-7 years? Cmon man. The Rock was electrifying the world of sports and entertainment all over the globe, night in and night out, while John Cena was struggling to be accepted at The University of Thuganomics

I only give it a C- because there was too little wrestling that was actually relevant. That tag-team match? Nope. I like Primo and Epico, but at least give them an actual and credible tag-team to fight with. The Sheamus and Mark Henry match? Why is this on RAW? The Daniel Bryan and Santino match? Eh, Santino is still mostly unfunny and annoying to me, when in a non-strictly comedy role.

The opening promo was pretty awesome. It stretched out a little too long, though. Have Cena say what he said, then leave, and go to commercial break. Sitting there watching Eve crumpled in the ring, people escorting her out, that was just weird. She was a gold digger, and got called out on being a ho; there is nothing problematic with that in and of itself. It’s not completely one sided, since people constantly give HHH shit about gold digging and marrying Stephanie, too.

The Undertaker and HHH promo was alright. I was hoping it would take a little more than just, “Oh, HBK is better than you, Hunter” to get him to agree to the match. We all know HBK is heads and shoulders a better wrestler and entertainer than HHH. But, whatever. Not digging that new music, or the fact that they refuse to acknowledge that Jericho has been wrestling longer than HHH and is one of the “old dogs”.

The battle royal match was better than I expected it to be. There wasn’t a flurry of exits in the first couple of seconds like most of those have. It was timed well. I was a little disappointed with CM Punk at the announcer’s table. Whatever it was, but he wasn’t really as good as he was in times past. Maybe the Barrett injury threw him off.

But, overall, not too bad.

That if a woman betrays your friend by messing around with you and you find out she just wanted to play you, too, you can insult her by calling her a bitch and a whore and then encourage large crowds to do the same. It’s okay to ruthlessly berate her, because hey, she deserves it, right?

There was a time when a woman would never consider such a vile act because she would be shamed within the community and deemed unworthy of mating by others within her tribe. Any other response is a tacit approval of her act.

Personally, I think Cena’s reasoning for not liking Rocky is petty. I guess I never realized that once you wrestle for WWE you are supposed to let them own you for life. I suppose I should hate The Rock because he found success outside the wrestling industry.

Apparently, The Rock has writers for his witty retorts. Does that mean everything John Cena does and says is real and was not written by the WWE creative team? I think not. The Rock also has a business manager. Oh my! How dare he!

Another thing I didn’t like was how phony Cena came off. From the past few Cena video packages, I have been told that what I see is what I get with John Cena. So why is he all of a sudden acting like Mr. Thug? I guess I can understand slipping into the accent, but not the way he starting doing his thug strut. Which is the real John Cena? Mr. Wholesome or Mr. Thuganomics? Why the heck has Cena been holding this grudge for seven years? What happened to rising above the hate?

While I’m at it, what was the deal with the ridiculous messages the Cena gym video were trying to get across? Cena lives near the FCW area in Tampa and lets the guys use his gym. Cena is a swell guy. The Rock works out by himself. He is evil.

I understand the dynamic they are trying to get across, but I’m not buying it. It only works if you think the same as Cena. If not, Cena comes across as a huge ignoramus.

He repeatedly keeps telling us that he only caters to his fans who, by the way, are little kids, and then he pulls this stunt last night. If you’re trying to be a role model and be against bullying, then you, in no way, call a woman a slut, hoski, skank, bitch, and STD-infested. It makes you out to be a hypocrite. Both Punk and Rock are right about Cena. He is a phony.