The 2012 Royal Rumble has passed, and the Road to WrestleMania has begun, welcome to A RAW Opinion, I’m Joe, and I’ll be taking you through yet another episode of WWE Raw.
We begin the show tonight with John Laurinaitis coming out to the ring shaking everyones hand, trying to suck up to everyone. He said he’s excited for his performance review tonight, he talks about he’s made mistakes, but everyone makes them, he starts sucking up to Triple H before going on about his performance as the special referee after Royal Rumble. He introduces the participants for the Raw Elimination Chamber match, he books Beth Phoenix VS Eve for the divas title, Randy Orton VS Dolph Ziggler (Again?) and Daniel Bryan VS CM Punk (CANNOT WAIT FOR THAT!) CM Punk comes out and starts singing “Na, na, na, na, na, Hey, hey, hey, goodbye. John Laurinaitis obviously wanted to laugh during that. CM Punk runs down Laurinaitis talking about how he continues to stutter and stammer over simple words. Daniel Bryan comes out and talks about nobody caring about Punks and Johnny’s personal problems, he was too busy winning the cage match last night, Bryan said compared to what he went through last night, Punk is not enough of a challenge. This brings out Sheamus to remind everyone he won the Royal Rumble match. I didn’t really see a need for Sheamus, especially if he didn’t announce what title he’d be going after.
Randy Orton VS Dolph Ziggler up first. Match got some pretty good time, sadly Orton got the win, I figured he would in his first singles match back from injury. I just don’t like how it was at the expense of Dolph Ziggler, my opinion, they need to be building him up big, he deserves a huge push.
They talk about what happened between Kane and John Cena last night at Royal Rumble, then showing Kane going after Ryder.
John Laurinaitis going around backstage shaking peoples hands, sucking up some more.
Next up on Raw, Brodus Clay! Somebody call my mama! His victim… Err, opponent for tonight is Tyler Reks. Tyler got a bit of offense in but Brodus puts him away easily.
Backstage talk between Punk and Bryan, setting up our next match, CM Punk VS Daniel Bryan, I have INSANELY high hopes for this match, I really hope it doesn’t let me down.
CM Punk VS Daniel Bryan is up next. I like how they started the match with a “Code Of Honor.” if you don’t know what that is, basically Ring Of Honor has this Code Of Honor where you’re supposed to shake hands before the match, even if that wasn‘t the intent, it made me think of ROH when they shook hands before the match. In a disturbing and stupid piece of commentating Jerry Lawler insinuated that fruits can feel pain… I’m glad this match got great time and despite the awful commentary, I loved it for the most part, not thrilled with Jericho coming out at the end, took out Bryan and then delivered a Codebreaker to Punk, I thought it took away from a great match.
New inductee into the WWE Hall Of Fame, Mike Tyson.
R Truth comes out to do commentary for the match between Kofi Kingston and The Miz. Miz came out talking about Kofi only being involved in Elimination Chamber because of a handstand. Pretty good match between these two, Kofi gets the win. Kind of surprised, I said it last week and I reiterate, Miz needs something new, he’s starting to go into a downward spiral.
Up next is the WWE Divas Title match between Eve and Beth Phoenix, one thing I don’t get, why do they insist on playing generic divas music whenever they show a divas graphic or show them walking backstage toward the entrance? Eve doesn’t even look composed tonight, I don’t see her winning or this match even being very long, and just as I thought, Beth beats Eve easily in under two minutes. After the match Kanes music hit and Kane showed up on the big screen, talking about how he’s going to continue to beat up on Ryder until Cena finally embraces the hate, and he’s going to use Eve to pass the message along, his music hits again and Kane gets in the ring, he stalks Eve and Cenas music hits, he runs down to the ring and starts brawling with Kane, they fight up and down the ramp, Cena begins destroying Kane, hitting him with the stairs a few times, he screams at Kane, every time Kane got to his feet Cena hit him with the steps, he tore apart the announce table Cena was about to hit an Attitude Adjustment through the announce table but Kane got out and ran off through the crowd. I loved this segment, I was wondering why the divas match happened last then all that happened and it made sense, perfect booking on that I think.
Up next, the fate of John Laurinaitis, earlier in the show I would have said I expected a HHH heel turn, setting up a match between HHH and CM Punk at WrestleMania, but after what happened earlier and they basically set up Punk VS Jericho, I’m not so sure what’s going to happen here. John basically starts off by almost rehashing the same speech he gave earlier tonight, except adding that ratings are higher now then they were a year ago at this time. Triple H interrupts him in the middle of him talking about how great a job he thought he was doing. Triple H said he’s been watching Laurinaitis since he’s gotten the role, and said he’s been quite worse then anyone else, he talked about John abusing his power to try and make himself a star. He said Vince was replaced because he let personal decisions cloud his judgment, he also said he was replaced for the same thing, John said he’d do “anything” to keep his job, Triple H is basically giving Laurinaitis the rope to hang himself here, he was apologizing to the fans who were booing the hell out of him the entire time. HHH asked the fans if they thought the apology was good enough, the fans booed like crazy, Triple H said maybe he should make John join a “certain club” Laurinaitis got on his knees after applying chap stick, HHH laughed at him, HHH said he’s not going to make him do anything to keep his job, he’s out there to “do what needs to be done” HHH was on the verge of announcing that John Laurinaitis was fired and he was taking over GM duties again until THE UNDERTAKERS music hit, he came out to the ring, him and HHH stared each other down, Taker looked at the WrestleMania sign, looked at Triple H and did the throat slash thing, HHH looked at the sign, then at Taker, patted him on the shoulder and left the ring and went backstage. A few things I didn’t understand here.
Why was Taker throwing down the challenge if he won last year?
Why did they insist on pretty much doing the same thing they did last year, with no words and just staring each other down.
Oh and, the hell with Undertaker AGAIN, first ending the career of my favorite wrestler of all time in Shawn Michaels, and now for interrupting John Laurinaitis being fired.
Other notes from Raw: I don’t understand why WWE felt the need to have Bryan and Punk end like that, I think Bryan should have cheated to win, and then after the match Jericho comes out and attacks Punk. Bryan cheating to win solidifies him as a heel, and doesn’t hurt the match as much as Jericho interrupting the great match to attack Punk. Just my opinion.
Brodus Clay, I love the guy, but I am getting a little tired of watching him in squash match after squash match, especially against guys who deserve a lot better.
Eve VS Beth wasn’t a good match by any means, but I do get why it was in the “main event” slot and why it ended as quick as it did, this feud between Kane and John Cena has me very interested, I am actually behind Cena, mostly because Ryder is currently one of my favorite active wrestlers right now, which brings me to some of those smarky fans who booed Kane when he destroyed Zack, but then cheered him when he was fighting Cena, Cena is fighting FOR Zack Ryder, so shouldn’t those people be cheering for Cena to get revenge for Zack? Common sense acting up again, it happens from time to time.
Commentary is somehow becoming worse and worse on a weekly basis, and it is now to the point where It’s bringing down the quality of matches, Jerry Lawler was especially brutal tonight, especially when he compared eating fruit to the killing of animals.
That’s all for this weeks edition, let me know what you thought about Raw as well as the column, thanks for reading this weeks edition of A RAW Opinion.
Ringsidehustle.com 
I felt Raw was a make good show for those who were disappointed with the Royal Rumble. The Orton-Ziggler and Punk-Bryan matches were very strong and they’ve begun the build to what I suspect will be a Jericho-Punk program for Mania.
I thought Undertaker’s return to challenge Trips was intriguing. I did find it odd that Taker was the one making the challenge being that he won last year. But I did like how Trips refused and I guess this will play out over the weeks until he decides to take off the corporate attire and return to his old Cerebral Asassian self.
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I felt Raw was a make good show for those who were disappointed with the Royal Rumble. The Orton-Ziggler and Punk-Bryan matches were very strong and they’ve begun the build to what I suspect will be a Jericho-Punk program for Mania.
I thought Undertaker’s return to challenge Trips was intriguing. I did find it odd that Taker was the one making the challenge being that he won last year. But I did like how Trips refused and I guess this will play out over the weeks until he decides to take off the corporate attire and return to his old Cerebral Asassian self.
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I felt Raw was a make good show for those who were disappointed with the Royal Rumble. The Orton-Ziggler and Punk-Bryan matches were very strong and they’ve begun the build to what I suspect will be a Jericho-Punk program for Mania.
I thought Undertaker’s return to challenge Trips was intriguing. I did find it odd that Taker was the one making the challenge being that he won last year. But I did like how Trips refused and I guess this will play out over the weeks until he decides to take off the corporate attire and return to his old Cerebral Asassian self.
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I don’t know how people could have been disappointed with the Royal Rumble, I thought it was a very solid PPV, aside from Sheamus winning and Big Show being #30. Most of the people who “hated” the Royal Rumble basically said “Jericho didn’t win, this PPV was terrible.”
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It’s the playlist mentality. People didn’t get what they wanted, so they can’t accept it.
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Storylines are very important to me, and when they swerve for the sake of swerving the IWC, it pisses me off.
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I just think WWE has backup plans when they see the audience pick up on things quickly.
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Maybe Taker did the challenge, because he didn’t like being carried off after the match?
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I was thinking that too, but if that was the case, shouldn’t Taker just take the win and run? Lol
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The Run-derTaker!
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I agree, swerving a storyline just for the sake of trolling the IWC is dumb and it does hurt, but does that really make an entire PPV garbage? It hurts it overall, no doubt, but the entire show as a whole was solid. you’re never going to have a 100% perfect show, but I didn’t think Royal Rumble was bad.
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Oh, I have other issues with the ppv.
Punk/Ziggler’s match was good, but not close to their best, but besides that, the finish was dragged out.
Cena/Kane was alright, and feel kinda fresh. However, the killing off of Zack Ryder is getting ridiculous; do something different already.
The Rumble match had it’s moments, and felt fun there at one point in the middle. The beginning, though, was slow, as was the entire latter half. There was never a ton of superstars in the match at one time. And the whole time you think something different/new/controversial is going to go down, only to be let down. Not by Sheamus winning, but just…nothing really happened, like it had sort of been built up as. It was the 25th anniversary of the Royal Rumble,but felt more like a Battle Royal.
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Give an example of “something happenning” instead of “nothing”. I thought the fact that when it came down to Jericho and Sheamus and we were going to have a first time winner was pretty cool.
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I honestly don’t like seeing a ton of guys in the ring at once, you lose track of the action. I thought Kharma being a surprise in the Rumble was pretty awesome, I was shocked as hell she came back.
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If Big Show is too injured, might we see Kharma vs. Shaq? lol
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How’s it going funkers?
Great work Joe, as always. RAW was good IMO except for a few things, some already mentioned throughout this comment box. The main thing that annoyed me was the fact we saw Bryan and Punk in a match and it wasn’t the show ender. We know how great these two can wrestle, we know both are the biggest champions on their respected brands. The titles seemed of little importance. They should of done something like have Punk be screwed out of the match by John L. and Triple H comes out to fire him. Why would John L. risk his job into further jeporady? He’s at a point where he doesn’t care, he pretty much knows he’ll be fired so he says ”what the hell” I’ll screw Punk, got nothing to lose. So he does that, Triple H comes out…cuts promo…about to say he’s fired…then….DONG! Takers music hits. The match would seem important and the Taker and HHH looks great too. Both stories are amazing to end the night.
BTW, do you all like to new site design?
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Thinking about what happened at the end of each segment, Taker coming back is a bigger shock than Jericho causing a non-finish to the DB/Punk match. People had the idea that Jericho would do something like that, nut very few saw Taker coming out at the moment he did.
As far as the new design goes, it sucks! You are so much better than that! Just kidding! It looks nifty. 🙂
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Well it wasn’t a complete shock Taker would come out, sure it wasn’t promoted or announced but at WM time, he’ll appear sooner rather than later to create a story.
haha, great to hear!
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Yeah, people knew he could come out, but that wasn’t what they were building to(that was John L. getting fired). But people had been expecting Jericho to get involved for quite some time. Personally, I would’ve had you end the show while dancing with the girls.
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I get what you’re saying, but why not have the 3 stories (Bryan/Punk, John L/Triple H/Taker/HHH) all in the one segment to end the show? Like Bryan/Punk was a HUGE match, but WWE didn’t show it was. I just feel if that was the main event, they still could of had the other two stories take part. This was that match would of been worthwhile watching, it just seemed to of been ruined. Jericho could of still take out Punk etc.. John L apologises again or something right after, then HHH comes out – about to fire him, then DONG! Taker comes out.
Okay, it’s changed slightly since my above comment but still. It doesn’t take a creative genius to come up with an interesting plot to show importance to a Champion vs. Champion match.
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Then people would’ve bitched that the whole thing was a clusterfuck, because if 1 extra person shows up, it ruins the segment for them. Plus, they need something big at the start, middle, and end. So i found it to be spread out ok.
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Well that’s a good point. I’m trying to say that, that match should of been a lot more important than what it was, but you don’t want a clusterfuck either.
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I didn’t mind the match placement so much, I do wish they would have had Bryan cheat to win, and then after the match was over have Jericho come out, a great match like that shouldn’t have ended in a DQ.
Another small note, I can’t believe how many replies this edition had, thanks to everyone for reading and commenting.
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But DB doesn’t seem like the kind who would cheat(yet) to win, but win by a technicality, which is what happened in this match.
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“Commentary is somehow becoming worse and worse on a weekly basis”
I was thinking this at the rumble. It has been terrible for a few years now but it is absolutely SICK ATM. Imagine if it was feasible to have an alternate comentary, maybe available to dowload or put out as an internet radio show for live viewers, who actually commentated on the in ring action and called the matches.
Hmmmm….could it happen??
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