The Oratory RAW Review Crew: February 8th 2010
by: The Raw Review Crew on: 2/11/2010 5:59 pm est 
Krizbii: Last time Raw had Nascar guest hosts the show turned out quite good (even though they sucked). Edwards/Sheamus/Christian Promo Carl Edwards had 3 women and a midget to try and get him over, but he still wasn’t. At least he’s friends with Cena so knows a bit about wrestling. Sheamus seems to have developed Orton’s habit of interrupting the opening segment whoever is in it. It’s a shame ECW is ending as the title belt is great, Christian clarified a few points that Vince’s announcement last week didn’t bother to mention, and gained us a champion vs champion match. Christian vs Sheamus A funny match as it did nothing for either guy except remind people who don’t watch ECW that Christian still exists. With Edge teasing who he was going to face, a little bit of interference here wouldn’t have been out of place, the clean finish wasn’t really necessary. HBK’s gradual breakdown has been a glorious thing. Last week was bad enough with Cole’s lacklustre commentary, Batista beating up Cena with idiotic background music didn’t really sell it very well either. The Ted/Cody break-up won’t work if they keep trying to out-heel each other, Ted won’t get any reaction as a face if he doesn’t change his act. If Cody really wanted to help Randy he should have bought him a Nascar, that turned out well last time. Straight Edge Society vs Degeneration X vs The Miz Show I love Serena, she doesn’t have to do much, but her body language really sells what Punk says. What I don’t love is triple threat tags when someone from each team is legal all the time, it makes the match far too contrived, especially with elimination rules. SES losing killed the heat of the match, why give Punk mic-time to build their heat, then put the belts on a team nobody cares about. Not the greatest celebration promo although Miz was right about the name, MizShow does sound better than ShowMiz. Typically they went with the shitty name instead. HBK/Long Backstage Shawn’s desperation to face Taker made Teddy’s pointless visit to watch the tag match worth it. Much like Serena’s body language, Carlito sneaking closer to hear what they were saying was a subtle little background thing that added to this segment (even if he was really just there to catch Teddy). Throwaway Women’s match Gail beat Jillian while Maryse talked, they’re having a match at Elimination chamber obviously. They could have just said that and forgotten the match, although Gail’s little top was worth it. Santino’s T-shirt is great, advertising Superstars matches is random. Carl Edwards had better keep his car away from Kofi. As for Springer hosting next week, he’d have been better during the HHH/Orton feud as a bit of comic relief. Rhodes vs Orton They clearly ran out of time for actual matches by this point, Sheamus costing Orton the match then attacking him still doesn’t make him look convincing. Cody didn’t need the win as he’s not in the chamber, but they’ll build that into the Legacy angle given what happened next. Cena vs DiBiase Repeatedly making a big deal of the beatings Cena takes, then him being totally fine is one of the most infuriatingly stupid things WWE keep doing. As he’s friends with Edwards he could easily hang out backstage, then cut a promo, but having a match completely undermined the Batista beating, not that it was much of a match, since he just destroyed what little shred of credibility DiBiase had going into the chamber. Cena/McMahon Promo Even if Vince did show up with a tank, Cena would probably make it tap in a few seconds. Vince is a godly promo even if he does take up too much screentime. Cena being such a suckup is awful, but it’d such a great payoff if he went corporate and sold out to Vince for the money, too bad that’ll never happen. Bret isn’t a great promo, but I’m sure he could challenge Vince to a match himself instead of Cena doing it for him. Cena came across as an idiot too, Bret vs Vince will obviously make Vince money, so him making the money vs moment challenge was incredibly stupid. About 5 minutes after anyone stopped caring, Vince agreed to the match, Bret showed up, destroyed a few random items by the stage that spark all pretty and Vince changed his mind. Vince vs Bret and Batista vs Cena are two big angles that almost sell themselves, so why WWE are trying to undermine that with such stupid dull crossover booking I’ve no idea. Final Thoughts After the last few weeks, this seemed to take a step back and got gradually worse towards the end with poor pacing. The last three matches got almost no time, Cena doing Bret’s promo for him was dumb and dragged like crazy. The tag match was good, but building SES with a five-minute promo then jobbing them out mid match was a really weird thing to do. Christian was a breath of fresh air to open the show and gave Sheamus a competitive match, but the lack of Edge was a bit of a disappointment. The tease of him facing Sheamus last week was good, now it’s obvious that not only is Edge going to Smackdown, but that Jericho is winning the Smackdown chamber match. Wrestling may be pre-determined for the performers, but for the viewers it’s nice to have a little bit of mystery. Any kind of Edge on the show would have done, even if he just sat in the crowd watching like his character when he first debuted with his mysterious ‘gothic lifestyle’. They need to sort out what’s happening with Bret/Vince and Batista/Cena soon. Cena challenging Vince for a match on Bret’s behalf was odd, but it was clear that Bret wanted to fight Vince. If they make Cena represent Bret instead, it’s watering down the Cena/Batista rivalry and making Cena little more than a high-budget Bobby Lashley. Cena and Batista’s Wrestlemania feud shouldn’t be saddled with a couple of old men and if anyone is going to fight on Bret’s behalf it should be the Hart Dynasty, Vince could recruit Miz and Big Show and they could easily do a six-man tag, without ruining two good feuds with a shitty compromise that nobody wants to see. Score: 6 e-mail the writer Krizbii – krizbii@hotmail.co.uk RRC by the numbers Last week: 8 Last 5 weeks: 6.3 Last 10 weeks: 5.2 2010 Overall Average: 6.42 |
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