As we continue towards WrestleMania XXVIII, Mr. WrestleMania himself comes to Raw tonight. What will he have to say to his best friend Triple H after the chilling challenge from The Undertaker? Also, WWE continues to build towards the Elimination Chamber, which is only 6 nights away. How will C.M. Punk react to Chris Jericho being the final entrant in that match? Read on for my thoughts on the show as it happens.
Whoa. Scary look to start the show.
This is a man who has brought hell to the top babyface in the company, a Diva, and a grassroots champion, who he injured so bad that he hasn't competed since.Yet, he gets a good amount of cheers. Something's really wrong here.
Laurinaitis never left...
This is a real thing. This is actually happening.
I'm getting early seasons of NXT vibes here.
If nothing else tells you how far off WWE is with their priorities, let it be this: they just showed a sign supporting the heel authority figure.
At least everyone's getting mic time in this.
Well then. Didn't expect those remarks.
Ziggler and Truth were entertaining in their own weird way.
R-Truth just won my vote.
And now back to seriousness.
Good boasting by Miz. We've got a pretty good crowd tonight.
This is kind of a mess.
Actually it's a lot of a mess.
Good promo by Kofi. A little short, but he held his own.
I thought the whole point of Jericho's return was that he was doing something different from big words, catch phrases, and slow talking.
Fun back-and-forth between Punk and Jericho.
Wow. What... what did I just watch? That was all kinds of crazy.
A while back Jericho talked about how he didn't want catch phrases as a heel. Now there are "Jericho wannabe" signs. WWE's really screwing up if people are supporting the heels this much.
NICE surprise from Kofi.
Ron Paul dropkicking Newt Gingrich. A man can dream.
So far, so good.
That fan is so enthralled with today's product that he/she has a reference to WCW's commentary team from 11 years ago.
This is BS. The fans should not be cheering Jericho. He's not doing his job if they are.
Good match from a technical standpoint.
Build for a whole week about what will happen when Michaels comes back to see HHH, then they meet backstage and hug. What are we supposed to be anticipating, then? Teasing a DX reunion's kind of desperate.
This isn't going to end well for Ryder I think.
Oh no. I get the feeling we're in for a match between Laurinaitis and Teddy Long.
Daniel Bryan should do commentary for Orton vs. Show.
Thank you. We finally think on the same page now.
You know what makes me want to see more of WWE? The fact that it has so many Facebook fans. They should save those things for press releases and corporate things.
If Show wins the title, I think I'd consider quitting in protest.
Orton vs. Bryan in a rematch works for me. They were great on Friday.
I wouldn't think there'd be much crossover with "Smash" and WWE.
Nice DDT spot. I was hoping for an RKO, but that was a pretty impressive visual.
Big Show just got right back up from Orton's finisher. Terrible.
Good heeling by Bryan. If they don't cut his legs out from under him, he can really be a character to watch.
Raw and Smackdown... 2 decades... WWE's pretty terrible at math.
Are we just going to get HBK every year around Mania time? He's one of the all-time greats and one of my personal favorites, but at some point it's time to move on if he's not doing anything important.
It's admittedly pretty big seeing these two in the same ring again. They've done some pretty awesome things.
It's also pretty cool in a way getting DX flashbacks. It's just not going to happen.
Oooohh... that was kind of below-the-belt.
Didn't these two have a big blood feud when Shawn returned from his big back injury (which was after HHH's marriage)? Answer: yes. And it was awesome.
This is kind of weird mixing the business side of things with the history of these people as competitors.
Did anyone else see that as kind of a jab at the current crop of stars?
Wow. They're cutting kind of deep here.
As big as I'd like to think one last HBK/HHH match would be, I don't know it'd live up to the expectations I'd have for it and to their matches 10 years or so ago.
This is definitely intriguing. I'll give them that.
Well, there's your explanation for Taker's haircut. Kind of.
And from that we move right to Dolph Ziggler in the ring after break.
This commentary's awful.
Ziggler's definitely doing something different in there.
And that's why you don't do sit ups in the middle of a match.
We go from selling the WWE Title match to a reminder of HHH and HBK.
WWE's way too focused on Twitter and comedy instead of building performers fans will pay money to see compete.
I guess she's officially got a last name now.
Tamina's doing good in her role, and fans are getting behind her, but I don't think she's ready for the Divas' Title just yet.
I like Beth's shirt. All in all, good segment except for the brevity.
I hope WWE's making enough money from its social media ventures to offset it cutting into the main product. I guess if they can finally get rid of that pesky "wrestling" and switch to celebrity cameos and comedy bits, they'll be content.
Someone needs a counter of references to things that aren't wrestling-related (social media, celebrities, talk shows, etc.).
Yeah, the Elimination Chamber will be a good time to end this angle for good.
It might be "poor Zack" for being a part of this angle after how entertaining he was as a light-hearted character.
At least Miz and Punk should end the show with a good match.
These two are great at what they do. I wish we got more in the way of performers like them and less like, say, Mason Ryan.
I guess the fairly short match is to save some action for Sunday.
Oh God, it's not over. As much as I push for character advancement, I should emphasize that I mean GOOD character advancement. Cena and Kane are being pushed as more important than the WWE and World Titles. I'm not particularly cool with that.
"Say no to flat currency". What is with the signs tonight?
Wow. That's pretty heavy to Cena. Though a couple of people chanting doesn't constitute "all" hating him.
This is pretty weird with the very mixed crowd reaction.
If they turn Zack Ryder heel, I'll have pretty much completely lost faith in their opinions on what the direction of stories should be.
Hopefully Zack's just frustrated or something. As many people as he got behind him as a face, I don't know if a heel turn's what they should be doing.
I hope this is working for them ratings-wise, because it's not the kind of story I'm into.
The sooner this wraps up, the better, I think.
That's all for Raw. I'll be back for NXT on Wednesday, and a news post will be up later. Thanks for reading!
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