The Good, the Bad and the Meh on Monday Night Raw: March 26, 2012

So, I've finally got around to watching Raw from Monday. It was a busy week, but I wanted to watch and review this show since it is the last one before Wrestlemania on Sunday. Here we go:

The Good:
Daniel Bryan and Kane beat Sheamus and Randy Orton in a very good match to start Raw. There were hot tags, there was excitement and crowd interest and there was a fitting ending. AJ, Bryan's girlfriend, stepping in front of Sheamus to protect her man and a chokeslam from Kane helped Daniel Bryan score the pinfall, which is exactly how the World Heavyweight Champion rolls. He weasels his way to victories and relies on AJ to step in when Bryan is in harm's way. Good start to the show.

The Santino (captain of team Teddy Long) vs. David Otunga (captain of team John Laurinaitis) wasn't much of a wrestling match, but was entertaining and got several crowd pops. Otunga hit himself with his team flag after trying to hit Hornswaggle with it and then Santino hit Otunga with the Cobra to get the win. The really worthwhile moments happened after the match, though. Teddy got in Johnny's face and pushed him over, then Miz came out to take down Santino before he could give the Cobra to Mr. Laurinaitis. Finally, Miz was given a spot on Team Johnny for Mania after the save. The audience really enjoyed the comedy of it all and it was fun to watch.

Wow, 3 segments in a row in the "Good" column. WWE did a great job putting together a promo video for the Triple H vs. Undertaker match at Wrestlemania. It highlighted the rise and successes of both men and Metallica's "The Memory Remains" was a great song choice, especially since their epic battle at last year's big show precipitated this match.

The Rock/John Cena stare down and war of words at the end of the show was their best confrontation in months, even though it started out rough. The Rock took that silly grin off of his face at the end and Cena hit him with some good points (especially that he needs the win to cement his place among the immortals and that he will still be in the WWE the day after Mania). I wish they had ended the show with an intense stare-down instead of fading out whilst the verbal joust was still ongoing, though overall this was the kind of showdown people had been waiting for.

The Bad:
Another week, another Brodus Clay squash match and dance-a-thon. Getting bored over here. Yawn. Give him a real opponent and real match, already!!!

Big Show absolutely dominated Primo, one half of the tag champions in less than a minute. That is not good for Primo's career and shows WWE still doesn't care about the tag titles. This could have at least been a longer match that made Primo look at least worthy of carrying Big Show's jock strap. Cody Rhodes' promo taunting Big Show after the match was funny, but this whole segment could have been better.

The segment where Eve manipulated Zack Ryder is just plain stupid. Eve cheated on Zack with John Cena a few months back and admitted she was using Ryder, but Ryder is infatuated with her again. Eve is gorgeous, I admit, but WWE could at least TRY to include logic and realism in their storylines.

Mark Henry beat Great Khali in under a minute. Come on, guys. Really??? How can we take Khali seriously after this? He is hard to watch, what with those wonky legs, but he is part of Team Teddy for Wrestlemania and needs to be seen as someone who can keep up with the others. Utterly ridiculous. I did like the rumble between the teams after the match and the fact that Booker T is now part of Team Teddy, but there were missed opportunities with this segment.

The Meh:
Kelly Kelly defeated Eve in a proper 1-on-1 match, which the divas hardly ever get. Kelly worked the crowd a bit, leading the "hoeski" chant (don't ask). There are 3 reasons why I put this into the "Meh" pile, though. There were some choke holds, but not much of any real wrestling (except a helicoptor spin), for one. Secondly, the ladies only got two minutes to battle it out in the ring. That's not enough time to tell a good in-ring story. Last but not least, Kelly pinned Eve after Eve missed a move from the top rope. She didn't use a finishing move or anything before the pin and I'm not a fan of that. That wouldn't happen in a men's match - they would always take advantage of the miss and hit their finishing move before the cover.

I enjoyed the buildup of the CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho match at Mania. Jericho calling Punk a "bastard child" on the videotron because he was born before his parents were married caused Punk to snap and destroy Christian, Punk's opponent at that moment. They used Christian in that segment because he is legitimately hurt, which is fine, but I don't like that Jericho wasn't actually in the arena for that segment, thus the "Meh" score. Jericho and Punk need more face-to-face showdowns, especially just six days before Wrestlemania.


Overall: 71/100
The show started and ended well, but got lost a bit in the middle. It was a good show overall, but didn't have the heat and intensity the final RAW before Wrestlemania should have, especially when there are so many good matches on the card. Plenty of missed opportunities if you ask me.