BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 13th, '11, 03:11

OPENING SEGMENT- GREAT! I love segments like this, and haven’t seen one in a while. The one thing I didn’t like was them trying to pass of the gauntlet match as new concept.

KONG PROMO- AWESOME!. It took me a while to figure out who it was for. Kong is coming to WWE to kill people.

WWE DIVAS TITLE MATCH: Eve Torres(c) vs. Brie Bella (w/Nikki Bella)- 2/10.
Having Eve insist on marking the Bellas to prevent the Twin Switch was genius. Almost too genius for TV, and probably should have been saved for PPV after build up via the Bellas using the Twin Switch to cheat.
The finish was the only part of this match that was good. Part of the reason for the specially low rating was that in the two minutes that was this match, I had actually forgotten that it was a title match. That is something that should never ever happen

DIVAS BACKSTAGE SEGMENT- interesting. Let’s see where they go with this.

SIN CARA vs. PRIMO- 5.5/10, but did its job PERFECTLY! This was a showcase for Sin Cara’s offense, with Primo getting in enough offense of his own to show off Sin Cara’s toughness. And I freaking love the Cyclorama as a finisher!

EDGE ANNOUNCEMENT HYPE- The graphic says “Retirement?”- but the announcers haven’t mentioned retirement once. The graphic should have just said “special announcement.” This killed a lot of the emotion for me, watching at home, when he came out and retired.

CORRE SEGMENT & SANTINO PROMO- GREAT! I popped when Gabriel grabbed the mic from Barrett. This was done perfectly. I loved Big Zeke getting in Barrett’s face and Wade not backing down one bit. When Santino & Co. came out, I was ready to rant about how they were ruining a perfect moment, but it dawned on me that that was the point. Rather than just letting tension hang for no reason by finishing the segment then having Corre team up in a match, this created a reason for the tension to be left hanging, to do dealt with at a later date. Great job by WWE. And the “A.P.P.L.E.”’s name was a great homage to the Union of People You OUghtta, Respect, Son.

CORRE vs. DANIEL BRYAN, SANTINO, MARK HENRY, & EVAN BOURNE- 4.75/10. Very short. I was also disappointed that we didn’t get one of those awesome big-man staredowns between Zeke and Mark Henry.

JERRY LAWLER (w/Jim Ross) vs. Jack Swagger (w/Michael Cole)- 4/10
The stip made it obvious who would win, but at least Swagger didn’t lose 100% cleanly. Not a very exciting match though. Also, where the hell was Josh Matthews? There was no commentary here at all. Cole and Lawler might not be there, Josh, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do your job!
For those of you who liked only being able to hear the managers shouting instructions, that is what it is generally like at indy shows where they don’t do live commentary (such as ROH, EVOLVE, and others). This is where managers at ringside truly get to shine, and no one had this down to a science more than Larry Sweeney. He mixed in humor in a way that was completely in character and still made you hate him and his clients. I remember at the second day of ROH TV tapings during Chris Hero’s match, some guys in the section across from me started chanting for whoever Hero’s opponent was (might have been Jay Briscoe or Steen, I don’t remember). Sweeney turned around and didn’t just try to shush them, or call them names like most other managers would: Sweeney got this perfect look of concern on his face, and started saying “no! no! no! no! no! and using his arms to signal that they should stop immediately. With the TV cameras there, Super Agent Larry Sweeney wanted to make sure that his stable looked popular so he could get them more money when he booked them. Just PERFECT! There are so few managers left in wrestling today, and the best one out there just died. RIP Larry.

POST MATCH STUFF- Cole slapping Swagger was great. The other stuff… not so much. The match makes kayfabe sense, but booking-wise, it suffers from the same problem as the Mania match: that the odds are not stacked against Lawler, and that is now compounded by the fact that Lawler has already had his revenge, so there is less of a desire to see it.

EDGE RETIRES- This was a nice, heartfelt retirement speech. Good for Edge to get out before he suffered any permanent damage, and thank you Edge for a great career.
This did, however, bring to light some facts that pissed me off a lot. If WWE knew that Edge was having these problems, WHY THE F*CK DID THEY KEEP THE BELT ON HIM?

EDGE’S RECEPTION BACKSTAGE- I don’t care if someone is retiring or not, but Kane should NEVER be seen in dress shirt and tie.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP GAUNTLET MATCH:
DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. RANDY ORTON- 3.75/10. Really? Nexus. Still? So the only thing that was resolved at Mania was the only thing that couldn’t possibly extend past it (match for Taker’s streak)? WTF?

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. R-TRUTH- 4/10. R-Truth goes over Ziggler. This was a terrible idea. Dolph is just about to break into the main event sceneR-Truth is a jobber to the stars. R-Truth should not have won this match, and definitely shouldn’t have done so cleanly.

R-TRUTH vs. JOHN MORRISON- 5.75/10 WHOA! Didn’t see that result coming. Hopefully Morrison going for a pin during that handshake is that start of his road to heeldom.

R-TRUTH vs. JOHN CENA- 6.25/10. This definitely seemed to be on its way to being at least a 7 before the Double-DQ finish.
Some other good news to come out of this is that WWE seems to be reading my mind, as this finish was planned for an EWA match down the line. If they are reading my mind, maybe Raw won’t suck as much.

Overall, this was a pretty bad episode of Raw. The best part of it was the promo for Kong.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Verdun
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Re: BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

Post by Verdun » Apr 13th, '11, 12:19

Solid review and I agree with it for the most part.

Just want to say about Edge not dropping the title, he said they found out about the spinal issue after Wrestlemania. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure he would have dropped the title to Del Rio.

Edge did a great deal for the company and he was a great performer, but I can't help but wonder what this could do for Christian.
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Sassafras
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Re: BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

Post by Sassafras » Apr 13th, '11, 12:43

BRM: If you're talking about who I THINK you're talking about, then that was Dustin Rhodes in the dress shirt and tie. Not Kane.
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Rabid619
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Re: BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

Post by Rabid619 » Apr 13th, '11, 13:02

Sassafras wrote:BRM: If you're talking about who I THINK you're talking about, then that was Dustin Rhodes in the dress shirt and tie. Not Kane.
This. Most definitely Dustin Rhodes.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 13th, '11, 16:11

Rabid619 wrote:
Sassafras wrote:BRM: If you're talking about who I THINK you're talking about, then that was Dustin Rhodes in the dress shirt and tie. Not Kane.
This. Most definitely Dustin Rhodes.
Oh. Well... then no one should ever look so similar to Kane that I can confuse the two of them. Kane>Goldust!
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
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DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

Sassafras
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Re: BRM's thoughts on the 4/11/2011 Raw

Post by Sassafras » Apr 13th, '11, 22:17

Big Red Machine wrote:
Rabid619 wrote:
Sassafras wrote:BRM: If you're talking about who I THINK you're talking about, then that was Dustin Rhodes in the dress shirt and tie. Not Kane.
This. Most definitely Dustin Rhodes.
Oh. Well... then no one should ever look so similar to Kane that I can confuse the two of them. Kane>Goldust!
Goldust > Kane, broski.
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