So.....RAW really sucked this week!

So……RAW really sucked this week.



Considering the build-up to this being the special 3 hour long “RAW Gets Rocked” go-home show before Survivor Series, the show on which the Rock would return to the WWE to sort things out before he steps into the ring for the first time in seven years, it spectacularly failed to drum up interest in either the match or the show. It created no tension or cliffhanger, left no questions which you had to tune into the PPV to watch, and did a very poor job in selling either of the big returns on the show.



It started badly with Jim Ross and Michael Cole taking 20 minutes to complete a segment which went precisely nowhere. Given that Cole has spent weeks hyping his “challenge” with JR and the potential for Cole to be fired from RAW if Ross beat him, the audience had a right to expect more than they got. Ross wins an arm-wrestling match, Ross wins an audience vote in a dance-off (surely done just to embarrass Ross further) and then Cole claims the win thanks to a weigh-off (which the entire audience could see coming thanks to the very obvious shape of the machine under the cloth. Obviously realising they had no conclusion, CM Punk coming out and slapping the Anaconda Vice on Cole for no other announced reason than he found the segment as boring as we did felt like a bit of panicked booking to me.



WWE then completely waste the return of Mick Foley to the company by simply having him get out of a limo backstage as Matt Stryker looks on. Really? That was the best you could come up with? If Foley was there to try to broker peace between Rock and Cena, at least give him a more dramatic entrance than that! Surely he’d have been better as the new RAW GM trying to do it? As it was it didn’t seem like an event, and the crowd reacted accordingly.



Mason Ryan versus Dolph Ziggler proves why Ryan should never be allowed near a WWE ring. He’s clumsy and dangerous, and nearly dropped Dolph on his head doing a simple full nelson slam.



The rest of the matches were predictable “lets mix up the Survivor Series teams/matches” stuff, but none of them really sold the match. The WWE are desperate to make Alberto Del Rio appear interesting, relevant, and a legitimate champion – hence letting him get one over on Punk this week with a backstage assault before the tag match with Punk and Show .v. Henry and Alberto, and hence them letting Alberto pin Punk at the end. It helps sell the idea that Del Rio is dangerous as champion, but really I’m not buying into him at main event, and I’m not sure anyone else is either.



Santino appearing for a 2 minute spot just to give Kevin Nash an excuse to powerbomb someone is a waste of time. If nothing can happen for 5 weeks because HHH is out, then simply have Nash either do a straight promo, or have him backstage with Johnny Ace talking about how they have taken over the place now that they have gotten rid of HHH.



But of course, all this was the garnish. The real meat and potatoes of this 3 hours was the return of the Rock and the selling of the Rock and Cena fractious tag team at Surivor Series. Surely they’d spend the bulk of the time selling that, setting things up, showing tension. Surely they let the two great promo guys go at each other and feed off the electric Boston crowd. Surely they couldn’t possibly screw up such an angle and waste the build into one of the biggest matches in seven years?



………Yes, they absolutely could, and in GRAND style.



Firstly, Foley comes to the ring wearing a half Rock/half Cena shirt. He gets the cheap pop (diminished somewhat due to his lacklustre introduction earlier) and talks about returning to the company he calls home (really Mick, we’ll just ignore the anti-WWE comments during the TNA years then?) He then goes on to say its unfair that the WWE fans boo Cena, and that he wished they’d consider more the effort the guy puts in. He goe son about how he rates Cena, how he and the Rock are great mates, and about how he is concerned about Sunday. Then he calls Cena out and the two of them talk about how Foley has always been a supporter of his.



Then begins one of the worst segments in WWE history. Foley introduces “This is Your Life” for Cena and produces his old baseball coach, his old tag team partner Bull Buchanan, and finally Cena’s Dad. Each tells some story about Cena, and each one of these segments goes down as well as an outbreak of rabies at a Guide Dog training centre. To say the segment died on its ass would be an understatement of massive proportions. The crowd absolutely pi$$ed on it, and rightly so. It was crushingly awful. In fact it was so bad that both Cena and Foley seemed to go off script and ad-lib some inside reference jokes about how badly it was sucking.



Maybe it was supposed to be cringe-inducing, but they lost the support of the audience before it was half-way done, and they were crying out for a conclusion.



In the end, they got one. Foley said he had another 5 guests, but then he was cut off as the Rock’s music hit. Without a word he stormed to the ring, hit a Rock Bottom on Foley, and stormed back out, his music still playing. As one, the viewing audience thanked him for ending the worst segment on RAW since Mae Young and the hand.



Foley’s WWE return utterly wasted.



Then that was it for the Rock, right until 165 minutes into a 180 minute show. A 15 second appearance was it for the build to the match, the build to a PPV only really being sold on that match. The 25^th anniversary of one of the big four PPVs.



Still, 15 minute to save it.



So Rock come out, and does a short promo about how he is glad to be back. He looks in phenomenal shape, but nothing so far has sold the match. He runs down Cena for a bit, then calls out Awesome Truth, saying he won’t wait until Sunday, he wants to kick their asses now. Out they come and cut a weak promo about how he and Cena can’t team up, and about how they are going to take them both apart at Survivor Series. Rock shapes up to them, and then out comes Cena. He and Rock stand across the ring from Awesome Truth, standing slightly facing away from each other. They trade a couple of lame insults (You haven’t been here for 7 years, you look like a moron, I fight for these people, I’ll stick a boot in your ass, blahh blahh blahh) Rock then says he didn’t come there just to talk (no, you came to sit on your ass for three hours) so he attacks Miz and Truth. He Rock Bottoms Truth, and as Cena lifts Miz for the AA, Rock pulls Miz off and hits a Rock Bottom instead, stealing the spotlight. Rock then walks back up the aisle as Cena looks on.



And that’s it. That’s your build. That was what three hours of RAW was building to.



What a waste of time and effort. I know these days the networks dictate when RAW needs to be three hours, but given a slot like that before one of the biggest PPVs of the year, given two huge returns, surely they could have come up with something better than that? Surely there could have been some angle setting up another 5 on 5 SS match at the show for instance?



But most of all surely both Cena and Rock could have been in more segments to sell the tension. I want to tune in on Sunday in the expectation they might rip each other’s heads off. I wanted to think Miz and truth were a legitimate threat. I wanted to believe one of them might not even make it or show up for the match. I believe none of those things.



I believe I won’t pay £15 to see the Rock return this Sunday!



I believe RAW failed.

TBH i havent seen raw this week yet and tbh i probably wont bother now, its all gone back to the boring ass stupid stuff since this cm punk alberto fued thing tbh, cena is a waste of space the rocks just in it for the money, they should quite frankly sack the pair of them and let punk run with the ball so to speak, i mean come oon he's the only legit performer on Raw atm give him the title and the mic and let him work his magic, i mean we all know what he can do just look at the promo about things being crap even if vince was dead a few months back that was genius.

Hey, Brummy's back! Goddamn Brum, that was one hell of an overtime shift! Lol

As usual, didn't watch Raw so can't comment. I remember The Rock's return promo he said somethingl ike "I'm back and here to stay" but I didn't believe it then. He's probably too busy hanging around with film stars to get back into wrestling full time

I've not even bothered watching any wrestling for the last six or so months. I just grew really bored of it, and this weeks RAW has shown that I was right not to waste my time watching it. What's made it become to dull though? Have the writers run out of ideas, or are the wrestlers themselves not pulling off the storylines that they've been given?

tbh its all cena all the time and the cartoon super hero is the only thing selling merch other than cm punk who quite frankly should be the leading star man just look up some of the raw promos from the last 5 months from punk he's been on fire, but as usual its the egos that get all the stuff and tbh if cena were to turn heel he'd still be shite

Oh, and welcome back Brummy!

Hate to mention this Brummy, but you're a wee bit late for the Reunion, lol

To be fair, Cena is pretty far from shite. He's actually one of their most consistent performers and its very rare for him to have a bad match on PPV.

What stops him from working in the eyes of some is the quality of the material he's given - in terms of the character he needs to sell, the material he's given to work with, and the angles (and match conclusions) he's booked into. They are the elements making the "hardcore" fans turn against him I think, not his actual talent.

If Cena was around to benefit from the quality of writing and booking that the likes of Austin and Rock benefited from in the late 90s, I'm not saying he'd necessarily be at their level, but there is no way he'd be getting savaged as badly as he does. Far worse performers than him have been made to look a million dollars before.

I remember Cena starting and people picking him as somebody who would go far. I agree on the fact it's not his fault. He'll never be my favourite but he's at what he does.

I think one of the main problems they've had his creating enough talent to go around. Lots of eggs in one basket, so to speak. Think of back when they had Trips, Foley, Rock, Austin, Angle, Taker, etc. all at the same time. Now they are seriously lacking that.

They had a major chance to make Punk a real major player. He still is but they seem to have stalled him in favour of making Del Rio a star.