BRM Reviews the 4/23/2012 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- the whole tease of the contract signing was dumb, and seemed to exist just so Johnny Ace could get some heat on Teddy Long. Then some guy comes out. The announcers are claiming that it is Edge, but I’m not buying it. Everyone knows that Edge has long blond hair. There is no way in hell Edge would be stupid enough to get one of those dumb Chris Jericho-esque haircuts.

Holy balls, that actually is Edge!

EDGE PROMO- the words were good, but I haven’t seen any evidence at all of this change in Cena that Edge (and Lawler) are talking about. It all seems very strange to me that they are trying to make the story about Brock not caring about the WWE when that is exactly what Cena was telling everyone about The Rock and he got no support from the announcers or anyone else… when Brock has been on TV every week since his return, as opposed to the standard Rock crap (two weeks ago The Rock cut a promo saying that he wanted to be WWE Champion again… and he hasn’t shown up since then- WTF?)

KOFI KINGSTON vs. CHRIS JERICHO- 6.75/10

JOSH MATTHEWS INTERVIEWS CM PUNK- good

R-TRUTH vs. LORD TENSAI (w/Sakamoto)- good squash.

KANE & RANDY ORTON SEGMENT- a nice little twist here. I enjoyed it (although Randy locking Bearer in a freezer seemed a bit over the top.

THE BIG SHOW & THE GREAT KHALI vs. CODY RHODES & ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Ricardo Rodriguez).- 5/10
What was the point of Del Rio leaving? Cody is still feuding with Big Show and is doing a great job as a heel. Why make us feel sorry for him?

SEGMENT IN JOHNNY ACE’S OFFICE- TERRIBLE! The Jericho stuff was dumb, and no one cares about Teddy Long anymore! If you wanted us to care about Teddy Long, maybe you shouldn’t have had him be physically assaulting Johnny Ace for no good reason during their feud! Teddy Long is honestly one of the most boring characters I have ever seen in wrestling. Right now, WWE could not possibly make me care about Teddy Long, even if I was promised a reward of three weeks of ecstasy with Trish Stratus if I even gave just one iota of a damn.

LUMBERJILL MATCH FOR THE WWE DIVAS TITLE: Beth Phoenix(c) vs. Nikki Bella (w/Brie Bella)- 2/10
Which MORON thought this was a good idea? With no build up whatsoever, you throw away a title reign whose entire angle has been your champ steamrolling through everyone… just to try to keep the BELLA TWINS around. These are the f*cking BELLA TWINS! They are so bad that I doubt any woman short of Sara Del Rey could carry their skinny asses to a good match (assuming Sara doesn’t just decide to kick all of their teeth down their throats instead)! Are they really that important to you that you felt the need to blow THE ONLY angle your women’s division has had in the past six months just to appease them? Yes, Beth got hurt, but the right thing to do here is to strip her of the title. This way, she can come back and claim that she wasn’t beaten (which is true).

CHRIS JERICHO MAKES CM PUNK TAKE A FIELD SOBRIETY TEST- HORRENDOUS WASTE OF TIME! Did anyone, either kayfabe or not, really think that Punk was drunk? COME ON! Jericho was just doing it to mess with Punk’s head and annoy him… so why the hell did he fall for Punk’s ruse? And to make things worse, during his (supposedly) dramatic correct recitation of the alphabet backwards, Punk screwed it up early on.

SINGLES MATCH WITH DANIEL BRYAN AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Mark Henry vs. Sheamus- No rating… AMAZING SEGMENT!

SANTINO MARELLA & ZACK RYDER vs. PRIMO & EPICO (w/Rosa Mendes)- 2.25/10
Is there any particular reason we are jobbing the tag champs out? No? Just didn’t have anything else to do with them, and it was so incredibly important that the comedy guy and Zack Ryder got a win? This sort of crap makes it hard to believe that this company has made so much money.

KANE & PAUL BEARER SEGMENT- dumb

ROSE, PRIMO, & EPICO ARE APPROACHED BY ABRAHAM WASHINGTON- good.

BRODUS CLAY & HORNSWOGGLE vs. AMERICAN PERFECTION (w/Vickie Guerrero)- DUD!
Michael Cole summed up my opinion of this segment perfectly when he said “I can’t believe we just sat through that.”

CENA-LESNAR CONTRACT SIGNING- This was GREAT! But as great as it was, I can’t help but wonder how much more awesome it would have been if Brock had better mic skills. Just image Chris Jericho or Austin Aries or Chris Hero or Christian or Shane Douglas in this spot, cutting this promo. It would have been EPIC.

Overall, a bad episode of Raw. It stunk in the ring, a lot of he stuff outside of the ring wasn’t good either. If THIS is what we can expect from three hours of WWE programming, then it really makes me want to reconsider my decision to buy the three hour PPV they have coming up this weekend.

[cero2k]

LUMBERJILL MATCH FOR THE WWE DIVAS TITLE: Beth Phoenix(c) vs. Nikki Bella (w/Brie Bella)- 2/10
Which MORON thought this was a good idea? With no build up whatsoever, you throw away a title reign whose entire angle has been your champ steamrolling through everyone… just to try to keep the BELLA TWINS around. These are the f*cking BELLA TWINS! They are so bad that I doubt any woman short of Sara Del Rey could carry their skinny asses to a good match (assuming Sara doesn’t just decide to kick all of their teeth down their throats instead)! Are they really that important to you that you felt the need to blow THE ONLY angle your women’s division has had in the past six months just to appease them? Yes, Beth got hurt, but the right thing to do here is to strip her of the title. This way, she can come back and claim that she wasn’t beaten (which is true).

I honestly have never felt that Phoenix steamrolling through everyone was an angle at all, it simply happened cuz there wasn't anyone that could hold the belt. Beth had the belt because there is nothing else to do with it. hell, the only angle in the divas division is "eve torres is a bitch". I may agree that giving it to nikki was out of nowhere and regardless whether it was to keep them or not, it didn't come out naturally. hopefully this will indeed be how Kharma comes back and then the real steamrolling angle can begin.

did anyone even notice that Chain Gang Cena came out and not the marine Cena??