5/14/2012 RAW REVIEW: A BAD SANDWICH

May 14, 2012. Last Monday Night Raw before the Over The Limit PPV, which has the potential match of the year on the card with CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan. #ItsClobberinTime vs #YesYesYes. With all that, WWE produces this awful excuse of an entertainment show. That’s what WWE is right? An Entertainment company, as Paul Heyman so eloquently put it at the start of the show while talking to Triple H. You know who’s winning in all this? TNA. TNA is getting rave reviews with they’re recent PPV outing. WWE answers with again, one of the worst Raws I’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong though, I enjoyed the Triple H and Paul Heyman segment at the start of the show. WWE had a strong foundation to build a great show. And then…

They team CM Punk with Santino to face Daniel Bryan and Cody. For? My hatred for Santino aside, the match itself wasn’t bad at all. Then? Alicia Fox vs Beth Phoenix. My attraction for Alicia Fox aside…yes, Alicia Fox is a fine specimen of a woman indeed…this match was what it was supposed to be. I actually think Beth and Alicia put on a good show for the time limit they had, but the crowd has been fed so much bad diva matches one after another, that even if they get a good showing, they give it no reaction. After the match, Layla ran to ring and gave Beth a face plant, and no reaction from the crowd what so ever. Layla, another fine woman in her own right, is nothing to the fans as far as talent goes. I am hoping that this leads to a Beth vs Kharma feud. That would bring credibility back to the diva division of the WWE.

Let’s go to the part of the show that was a complete joke. Big Show vs Kane. This match, first of all, was way too long. It was brutal. Adding to the fact that Johnny Ace was out there because Big Show had to apologize or be “fired.” So what happens? During the match, which was going completely bad already, Johnny Ace gets on the mic and tells Big Show to apologize, and that leads to one of the worse choke slams in professional wrestling history. After the match, WWE decides to make Big Show look like a lap dog. Seeing a 7 foot tall big bald man on his knees crying like diva breaking a nail was a joke. One good thing it did do was make Johnny Ace a bigger heel. What it did for Big Show? Nothing positive, I’ll say that much.

After that fiasco, the booker decided to bring out Brodus Clay. (Insert face palm here) Brodus Clay and Lord Tensai need to get together and thank God for still being hired in this business. Naomi and Cameron, never going to complain about them on my TV…precious they are. All that aside, they have R Truth and Kofi going against Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler at Over The Limit. I see the potential. I don’t get it as far as storyline wise, but the match itself has potential. I can’t wait for credibility to come back to the tag team scene in the WWE. I recently got the new Edge DVD, which is awesome by the way, and on that DVD there’s a match with Edge and Christian vs Too Cool vs T & A vs the Hardy Boyz for the tag team championship. In today’s WWE, that would considered a cluster----waiting to happen. Those 8 wrestlers managed to put in a great match. The ring psychology in that match was phenomenal. For the love of God WWE, bring the psychology back to these tag matches!!

Then you came to a highlight of the show, Randy Orton vs Chris Jericho. So much pressure on these two at this point because the crowd has sat through a crap fest for the most part. With all that said, Orton and Jericho put on a show for fans in attendance. Yes it did end in a DQ, but I feel it gave a great build for the World Title match at Over The Limit. Alberto Del Rio was missing in the equation tonight, but I can pretty much guarantee he’ll be involved on Smackdown one way or another.

Now we come to the end of the show. The showdown between John Cena and Johnny Ace. Going into this segment, I thought it was going to be a complete waste of time. I’ve never been glad to be so wrong. This segment delivered. Johnny Ace started off talking noise, then Cena came out to a surprisingly good pop. He did go into his usual Cena antics, but for some reason tonight, it worked. The crowd was into it. I mean, yes it was corny, but it worked. Then with the new stipulation on the match that if Johnny Ace loses, he gets fired, may have sold more buys for the PPV.

If I had to give Raw a grade, I’d give it a D+. I don’t need parts of the show to be great. I don’t need parts of the show where the crowd is alive and hot. I need this for the whole show. This is NBA Playoffs time just in case WWE forgot. TNA just delivered a great reviewed PPV just in case WWE forgot. And this is the show produced before Over The Limit? When people eat a sandwich, they eat more than the bread. They need the meat to be good as well. One bad tomato, one rotten lettuce, one bad piece of meat can ruin a whole sandwich.

Stay Saved,

Big Dusty
Daniel Richerson
@Big_Dusty on Twitter
Facebook.com/bigdusty

DEAD CROWD MAKES FOR A DEAD SHOW

Wrestling fans. It’s been a strange couple of weeks, hasn’t it? Last week was Wrestlemania, but the next night was probably the best Monday Night Raw ever aired in quite some time. I mean the crowd was bananas. I even tweeted that the crowd made the night feel like an original ECW show. Why? Think about back when the crowd would chant for RVD all throughout the show. Now let’s get to last Monday, who was the star of the show? Not John Cena. Not The Rock. Not CM Punk. Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan was the star of the show, and I loved it. It was a magical night for him, for the WWE, and for professional wrestling as a whole. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a crowd that hot for a WWE show.  I feel that if a crowd is that hot for a WWE show, since WWE is the number one promotion, then things are good for the business as a whole. All night you heard the chants of Daniel Byran. All night you heard chants of, “Yes!” Nobody could deny how hot that Miami, FL crowd was. Then you had Brock Lesnar comeback. When I say, I was jumping up and down in the living room? I was that excited. It was a night to remember. After that show, I felt proud to be a WWE fan. After that show, I felt proud to be a professional wrestling fan. And then…

Then you go to one week later. Monday Night Raw is in capital of the USA, Washington D.C. Because of the show last week, this show had all the buildup it needed to be magical. The show starts off with Johnny Ace in the ring with Mr. Jennifer Hudson aka David Otunga. Johnny Ace brings out Brock Lesnar, which leads to John Cena coming out, and the brawl of the year happens. We even saw some color, that’s wrestling talk for blood, for a change on PG WWE programming when Cena got his mouth busted. The opening was epic! And then…

Then the rest of the show happened. First of all they had the stars of the new Three Stooges movie guest host Raw as the characters. Here’s the thing. Moe, Larry, and Curly were real people. They’re dead. Trying to put over a comedy act from the 30s, 40s, and 50s to a crowd in 2012 is not the brightest move anyway. Let’s get to why the “Three Stooges” were there in the first place. To promote the movie? Yes, but let’s remember one important piece of information. David Otunga is married to the beautiful Jennifer Hudson. Jennifer Hudson is in the movie “Three Stooges.” David Otunga is a major part of the WWE Show, or at least he’s being advertised that way. His wife is in an upcoming movie. I guess WWE figured, why not! Probably asked the question, “What could go wrong?” If you watched the show, you know the answer to that question. The Stooges were about as over as John Cena in the Hammerstein Ballroom. I mean it was horrible. And this is coming from a fan of the original Three Stooges. This is coming from a guy that was actually looking forward to seeing the new movie. But after Monday night…not so much.

Let’s talk about the crowd shall we? To quote Stephen A. Smith, that crowd was “so disrespectful!” I mean it was like night and day from Miami to DC. Miami was like ECW 1997. DC was like ECW WWECW. The crowd was dead the whole show. CM Punk cut a tremendous promo, but it went over the crowd’s head like a Three Stooges joke in 2012. Interesting…

All through the night I was tweeting along with others that WWE should’ve hired that Miami crowd and bring them everywhere they go. Miami is what we want to see very week we watch wrestling. When we tune in to wrestling, we not only want the crowd to be hot, we need the crowd to be hot so we can be into the show. When the crowd is dead, it makes the show seem boring. If I was handling WWE’s booking, I wouldn’t go back to DC for at least a year or two.

Now next week, the show is going to be in England. England is always hot. They’re always into the show. So next week should be a good show, but considering how bad DC made the show, how can I be positive about England?

I talked earlier about CM Punk. I for one am loving the CM Punk/ Chris Jericho storyline. It’s compelling, and you know classic matches are coming out of it. The Daniel Bryan storyline is good because the crowd is behind him. Daniel Bryan is going to be a bigger star this year in 2012, mark my words, because the crowd is going to make him so. Zack Ryder should be one of the bigger stars right now, but WWE has flushed him down the toilet so much that he’s become watered down. And instead they push…Eve. And that should tell you all you need to know about WWE management.

Sorry for the long wait. I know it’s been too long since I’ve posted about wrestling, but hopefully I’ll be back doing these things more often. Feel free to share this around with all the wrestling fans you know and let’s get talking about this great sport. Follow me on Twitter @Big_Dusty and friend me on FaceBook at Facebook.com/bigdusty

Stay Saved,

Big Dusty aka Daniel Richerson