WWE Monday Night Raw last night (April 23, 2012) emanated from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, and featured a three-hour go-home show to the Extreme Rules pay-per-view set to take place this Sun., April 29, 2012, in Chicago, Illinois.
And it was terrible. Utter and complete garbage.
Oftentimes, when Raw is bad that means the comments section in the live blog thread is really good. And sure enough, you Cagesiders didn't disappoint last night like WWE did. In fact, I thought I would bring back the "Comment of the Night" just for the occasion. And that honor goes to bensix, who dropped the following gem after yet another video replay: "As an amnesiac who can't remember things that happened sixty minutes ago I really valued that repeat."
Well done, sir.
Enough with the small talk, though. If you want full results from Raw last night, click here for the running live blog. You can also listen to Sergio and I on the Cageside Live podcast gabbing the show right here. Time to get to reactions from the show, posted after the jump.
- Apologies for this being late but with the three-hour garbage Raw, the podcast, and the late hour, I needed sleep. This is one post I'll never skip, though, so better late than never.
- Did it almost feel like Edge returned just so WWE could get one more date out of him before his contract expired? Either way, he was good in the role he was given. I like the idea that John Cena was still smiling on the way out to the ring for the contract signing and Edge returned just long enough to make him understand the gravity of the situation. I'm not sure I agree with the "you're not the same guy you used to be" angle because I don't feel like it's true. Of course Cena was beating Edge. And of course he couldn't beat The Rock. Why is that so surprising? Still, the segment was done well.
- CM Drunk would be a far more compelling character than whatever CM Punk has turned into. Is there anything interesting about him anymore? They've already done the straight edge gimmick to death. In fact, it's almost comical that WWE would give him an entire "society" he was the leader of as a heel and turn around and use the same principles for him to use now as a babyface. This story with Chris Jericho really could have went somewhere, a dark place where real life happens, like a kid with an alcoholic father growing up to actually become one himself. Testing those boundaries and exploring that angle would have been truly compelling stuff. Having Punk pretend like he was drunk for an hour before paying off the punchline with a lame brawl on a go-home to a pay-per-view? FAIL.
- Speaking of fail, let's make sure Brock Lesnar never gets near a microphone again. He's good in pre-tapes when you can edit him and make him feel comfortable. That means not asking him to carry an entire segment with a crowd turning on him because they literally can't handle how bad he sucks when he speaks. It took him a while to get the hang of it eight years ago, I guess it will be the same now. He got lost at points, stumbled over his words, repeated himself far too many times, looked generally uncomfortable, his face was beet red like he was suffocating, and he doesn't project with his voice. All those ingredients equal the worst possible closing segment to make a paying customer want to spend their hard earned dollars on a match.
- Can someone teach John Cena the difference between being tentative and being a robotic slow poke? Thanks.
- Lord Tensai squashed another superstar this week. In related news, did you know sows can become pregnant after just eight months of being alive?
- I really like Eve getting cozy with John Laurinaitis, not because the two characters mix well (which they don't) but because it fits in with the character WWE has created for Ms. Torres. She's a power hungry, conniving, beautiful woman who will do what she needs to in order to be at the top. Nice to see a legitimate storyline for a Diva that doesn't involve bullshit like slut shaming, though I'm sure that will come later once she gets taken down.
- How many feuds have there been where the storyline and angles run throughout it have been so mind numbingly stupid you wanted to shove an axe pick through your ear but the actual matches weren't too shabby? That's what we're getting with Kane and Randy Orton. Everything they do that isn't a match is about as useful as Sergio's liver.
- Pretty sure Paul Bearer is dead, you guys. RIP Percy Pringle. Think they plan on bringing up charges on Orton and Kane for murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, all that jazz? Yeah, me neither.
- I'm glad Josh Matthews got his shit tossed by Brock Lesnar for asking those silly backstage questions. In fact, that should be an entire gimmick created for a character with nothing better to do with his time, like R-Truth. An interviewer asks a stupid question and Truth shows up and stomps a mudhole in his ass. He only walks it dry if the interviewer lips off after, though.
- Daniel Bryan the referee was better than 85-percent of the show last night and that's both sad and compelling to me. It's too bad he doesn't get more TV time and he's being jobbed out to Sheamus at Extreme Rules. I'm not going to be one of those smarks who complains about losses and what not, I just want to see him more often than I do Great Khali, who has gotten more time on television -- and more credible wins -- than Bryan has for weeks. There's something wrong with that in my world. Maybe not yours, but definitely in mine.
- Unless Abraham Washington is building a stable, those backstage skits are worthless. Kind of like Primo and Epico and those belts they carry around. When you're jobbing to Zack Ryder, you just KNOW it can't get much worse.
- Brodus Clay is still fun. I'm not saying he's not. But his match/segment last night with Hornswoggle and Dolph Ziggler (poor guy, forced to sell offense from a midget), Jack Swagger and Vickie Guerrero is why we can't have nice things. Hornswoggle biting Vickie in her ass? Seriously? I thought Todd Martin nailed this perfectly in his Raw report: "This is one of those segments that make so many people refuse to consider wrestling as a halfway respectable form of entertainment." Yep.
- Get rid of the U.S. title and the Intercontinental title. Just pull the damn plug already. Aren't we tired of seeing them in this vegetable state? Haven't we nurtured the hope for long enough? At this point we're just hurting ourselves. The humane thing to do is end it, right? RIGHT?!?!
- They had three hours to work with on a go-home show and this was what we were given. There are days when I forget what I love about pro wrestling and this is one of them.
The show was terrible and I give it a D- and the only reason that's not an F is because of Edge. But it's more like, if 58 and below is an F and 59-68 is a D, this was a 59.
But that's enough from me, Cagesiders. Now it's your turn to sound off in the comments section below with all your thoughts on this magnificently horrible episode of Raw. What's your grade?