Welcome once again to an oh so late edition of 10 Thoughts on WWE Raw. After being a good kid and getting these up on Monday nights for a long time, I ended up taking a Monday off and am just getting back on the horse. I have appreciated many people asking where the 10 Thoughts have been, since it means that people pay attention to my blog. Thank you everyone for feeding my ego.
Now, on with the thoughts!
1. That opening segment did exactly what it was supposed to. We saw Jerry Lawler get his revenge on Michael Cole and we got to see things heat up a little bit between The Miz and Randy Orton. Most importantly, with the RKO from Orton, we were treated to a show without Michael Cole.
2. Speaking of a show without Cole, one of the remarkable things on this show to me was hearing the progress that Josh Matthews has made as a play by play voice. He has surpassed Todd Grisham and actually does play by play, which makes him better than Michael Cole. The commentary seemed to work better with CM Punk rocking his snarky heel persona with an actual babyface to bounce statements off of.
3. I don’t quite understand why Daniel Bryan is being paired with the Bella Twins. Is it supposed to be funny? It’s not. Will it really help to get him more over? His in ring performances are the reason why people are cheering him right now (that and the work The Miz and Michael Cole have done on his character). It doesn’t hurt his act, but the Bellas certainly do not help it either.
4. I’m a little bit surprised to see a new t-shirt for The Nexus, but then I remembered how quickly Nexus shirts sold out at the house show I was at on Sunday. It’s interesting that rumors have gone around that they aren’t selling, when I saw more Nexus shirts than even Cena shirts selling Sunday. To read more about this house show, check out itswilltime.wordpress.com.
5. Tyson Kidd’s act should be well enhanced with a bodyguard. Hopefully this big guy can get it done in the ring, or is as intelligent as Kevin Nash. If neither of those things are true, than he will go the way of Vance Archer and we’ll see his name on a list next fall.
6. Why have the Tag Team Championships change hands on Raw, rather than at the Survivor Series? Those belts don’t mean a ton anyways, so I understand putting them on the very over act of Santino and Kozlov. Looking at this match, one can see just how sad WWE’s tag team division is right now.
6a. Heath Slater’s jumping neck breaker finisher looks awful. I have not seen one person sell it well. All it really looks like is a guy jumping and twirling around in the air, then the opponent falls. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he stole it from R-Truth. That’s how bad this finisher looks.
7. What was Sheamus wearing? I get that he is Irish and I understand the Irish crown, but did it all have to be horribly ugly? Sheamus looked like the low budget version of Triple H from Wrestlemania 22. As ugly as Sheamus’ outfit was, it did not compare in ugliness to the promo from John Morrison. He needs some serious help.
8. For some reason, I found it weird that Randy Orton would use a powerbomb. It’s a great move, but we have just never seen him break it out. Aside from that, I liked the entire Miz-Orton-Riley segment. Alex Riley is playing the part of whipping boy perfectly.
9. Having John Cena appear during in-ring segments on Raw is a poor choice from WWE. I understand that he is not fired and they want to make sure fans know that, but it seems that the only thing that changed for Cena is that he doesn’t have to wrestle on Raw, just show up.
10. The ultimatum from The Nexus towards Wade Barrett was a great way to end this week’s show. It motivates people to tune in to next week and adds some intrigue to the overall WWE product. My only concern is that in creating a rift between Nexus and Barrett, did WWE shoot themselves in the foot when it’s time for the group to dominate again?
That’s all I’ve got for this week folks! Thank you for your exceptional patience in the face of my laziness. I’ll be back soon with more wrestling thoughts! To see my write up of the house show I attended on Sunday, check out itswilltime.wordpress.com.
