WWE Monday Night Raw - November 29, 2010
Alex Riley - Alex Riley starts off by coming out onto the stage dressed in a suit. He puts over The Miz, as expected, and does a good job at it. I think Riley is pretty damn good on the mic and I was surprised to hear that his DUI arrest was brought into play by both Riley himself and CM Punk on commentary. His DUI was a stupid ass move on his part in more ways than one but I'm glad to see that the WWE isn't just shying away from it like I expected them too. It's good to see them lightening up a bit and not try to contain everything in a little bubble. Thumbs Up
Daniel Bryan vs. Alberto Del Rio - This was the first match in the KOTR tournament and it was a pretty good one. It wasn't as good as some of Bryan's other matches thus far, but it was a solid 10 minute outing. The crowd was into the match and I thought that it had a nice pace to it. Bryan didn't hit as much of his usual offense in this match and I think it would've made it a bit better. Bryan hits the suicide dive on Del Rio and rams his shoulder into the barricade. He sold it well and Del Rio eventually got the win via the arm bar submission after working on the injured shoulder a bit. I would have liked to have seen Bryan go further in the tourney and it would've made more sense for Del Rio to cheat to get the win, but it was a fun match overall and Del Rio advances. Thumbs Up
R-Truth - I was a little surprised to see Truth come out and do a promo as it's usually not his thing. It wasn't anything overly spectacular but I thought the guy did a solid job. Truth continued to remind everyone of the John Cena situation and challenged any member of Nexus to a match. The camera flips to backstage and Michael McGuillicutty steps up but is attacked a little bit from The Nexus locker room by John Cena, even though Cena is never actually seen on camera. I cringed as I thought "Juan Cena" was going to make his debut. There wasn't anything special here but it was passable. Thumbs Up[/]
John Morrison vs. Dashing Cody Rhodes - Pretty good match while it lasted. Morrison & Rhodes I think could have a good chemistry together and they put It set a good pace and I thought it was quite solid while it lasted. I wish it would have lasted longer but I thought they did well with the time they were given. JoMo gets the win at roughly the 4 minute mark. Thumbs Up
Drew McIntyre vs. Ezekiel Jackson - This match lasted under 3 minutes and both guys got counted out. It just didn't really do it for me due to that because, as a result, someone is automatically going to get a buy into the tourney finals. One thing that I will say, however, is that I liked that Drew McIntyre took it to Big Zeke the entire time. McIntyre was aggressive and both guys delivered some good hard hitting shots out there. I expected McIntyre to basically get tossed around all over the place, getting dominated by Zeke and managing to sneak in a win by getting Zeke counted out. McIntyre held his own, however, and did look good against Zeke. However, the cheap finish just kinda left me cold. Otherwise, it was pretty decent while it lasted and better than what one would've expected. Thumbs Down
The Miz & Jerry Lawler - The Miz came out at the top of the 9 pm hour to give his first promo as WWE Champion. I thought Miz did a great job on the mic tonight even though we didn't really hear anything new from him. However, he did address some of the past instances in which he's basically been written off as a joke or treated like crap and I thought that was appropriate given that he's accomplished what most people would've never believed at this time 2-3 years ago. The Miz insulted the fans as well in a classic way by setting himself up as someone exemplary that followed his dreams and managed to achieve them. I thought Miz using the close up pictures of that little girl from last week's Raw that we've all seen was a sweet little touch. She was cute as a button but was royally pissed off at the same time. I was surprised to hear Jerry Lawler interrupt The Miz's promo as it hardly ever happens. Lawler, for all intents and purposes, called Miz a punk and that his title win was a fluke. I like that the WWE is already using the fluke bit because, hopefully, it means that they're going to keep the title on Miz for a while. I like the picture Lawler and Miz painted here with the past, represented by Lawler, calling out the brash young cocky wrestler that seems to represent a lot of guys you see today. Miz turned down Lawler's request for a title shot but the Raw GM pings in and grants the match and makes it a TLC match. I have to admit that I'm not all that wild about this idea. At any rate, I thought this was a great segment. Thumbs Up
Sheamus vs. Kofi Kingston - This was a fun match with both Kofi & Sheamus looking pretty good. Both wrestlers got in a good deal of offense and were able to deliver a very good 5 minute match. I also like how Sheamus has evolved from basically an Irish brawler at this time last year to someone that's more of a thinker and a planner. Sheamus gets the win after catching Kofi with a modified Brogue Kick as Kofi was going for a high across body off the top. The kick looked sort of awkward but, then again, Kofi was in an awkward position. Thumbs Up
Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel vs. Mark Henry & Yoshi Tatsu - Pretty lame match here and it was little more than a foil for John Cena. He comes down through the stand as he "bought a ticket" to the show. Why the hell does he have 4 or 5 tickets in his hand exactly? Anyhow, nothing here to say really as Cena distracts Slater and let's Henry recover enough to hit the World's Strongest Slam on Slater for the pin at the 2.5 minute mark. Cena then jumps the rail and puts Slater through the announce table with the AA before taking off. This was just pretty lame in my view. Would it have killed them to keep Cena off television for a week or two? Thumbs Down
John Morrison vs. Alberto Del Rio - Like most of the other KOTR matches tonight, this one was a very solid, though unspectacular, match that worked well with the time they were given. Morrison & Del Rio have had a match or two in the past and they were pretty good ones. During this match, Morrison injures his arm and Del Rio looks to be circling in for the kill only for the horn in his car to start blowing. Rey Mysterio pops up through the sun roof and distracts Del Rio long enough for Morrison hit the Flash Kick for the win at the 3.5 minute mark. Morrison wins and goes on to face Sheamus in the KOTR finals. Thumbs Up
The Nexus Beaten Down - Wade Barrett comes out to the ring and gives a solid promo and addressed one of the big concerns that everyone has had about this angle: that he'd eventually get so frustrated that he'd demand Cena be reinstated so they could settle it. Barrett said it wasn't going to happen and is interrupted by Cena out in the parking lot. As they banter a bit, Justin Gabriel, David Otunga & Husky Harris have Cena surrounded and cornered up against a semi. Suddenly, most of the faces in the Raw locker room come out and jump The Nexus from behind. Cena absolutely slaughters Gabriel by slamming him up against the side of a car with enough force to dent the shit out of it and break the window before AAing Gabriel onto the hood of the car, thereby smashing the windshield. One thing I noticed was that R-Truth wasn't out there with the rest of the boys and it made me think back to his earlier promo in the ring about wanting a piece of Nexus. I believe that Truth is still going to have some big role to play in all this by the time it's all said and done. Thumbs Up
Natalya, Gail Kim & Melina vs. Maryse, Tamina & Alicia Fox - The match generally speaking wasn't bad and went about 3.5 minutes. Everything, of course, was overshadowed with Santino coming out to serenade Tamina on his guitar while the match was going on. I knew that there'd have to be a little sillyness tossed in here about. Natalya, Gail & Melina get the win when Natalya forces Alicia Fox to tap out to the Sharpshooter for the 900th time. Thumbs Down
Sheamus vs. John Morrison - I thought that this was a great match, better than any they've had thus far. Sheamus came across as a thinking man's brawler and his constant work on Morrison's arm still puts me in mind of the old Anderson mentality. The match told a great story and Morrison sold his arm injury well. Morrison also showed tremendous heart in the ring and I honestly didn't know who was going to pick up the win here. On one hand, Sheamus had been built up well and was the fresher wrestler but Morrison came in with a never say quit sort of mentality and gave as good as he got. The crowd was hot for this and Morrison seemed on the edge of victory. Sheamus blocks Starship Pain with his knees and his knees did connect with Morrison's injured arm. He then hits the Brogue Kick followed by the High Cross to get the win and become 2010 King of the Ring a little past the 12 minute mark. Sheamus goes up onto the stage and takes the septer, which kinda looks like some neolithic sex toy to me, has the cape put on him and the crown. I have no problem with Sheamus winning and I hope that his feud with JoMo continues. Thumbs Up
The Miz vs. Jerry Lawler - I have to give the WWE credit here because they actually made me care about this match. The video clip of Lawler back in his glory days was a lot of fun to see and they did a good job at painting Lawler as the underdog. The match in and of itself was actually ok all things considered. What it was able to do more than anything, however, was to tell a great story using a pretty simple and basic formula. They made The Miz look like an overconfident heel champion that could have climbed the ladder and retrieved the title at probably half a dozen times during the match. I was worried that Lawler was going to get in far too much offense on Miz but most of his offense came simply from Miz not paying attention and taking his eye off the ball as heels tend to do. Lawler eventually knocks Miz off the top rope and through a wooden table, giving him a chance to climb the ladder. It reminded me of several years ago when Ric Flair was featured in a ladder match on Raw for the title and seemed just on the verge of getting it only to be stopped. Michael Cole jumped into the ring and I was very surprised by that. He grabs hold of Lawler's ankle and Lawler climbs down. He keeps asking Cole what he was doing with Cole apologizing before getting laid out by a series of punches. Miz, meanwhile, climbs the ladder and so does Lawler. They fight it out on top of the ladder for a bit with Miz knocking Lawler off and pulling down the title. This wasn't some classic hardcore match and it wasn't intended to be. Thumbs Up
Overall Show - I thought that the KOTR Raw tonight was a very solid show overall. It wasn't as strong as last week's, what with all the shocking stuff that went down, but this was a very good show in my view. I think the WWE has found the key to making these three hour Raws work: take them seriously and treat these shows as if they matter. They did it with Old School Raw and they did it again tonight. I believe that they need to spread these shows out more next year instead of having three of them within less than a 2 month period, but I like how these last two have worked. Most of the KOTR matches were solid and the finals between Sheamus & Morrison was a damn good match. It would've been nice if Cena had been off tv for a few weeks, but at least we didn't see "Juan Cena", which would be an insult to the collective intelligence of the audience and might actually piss off some hispanic viewers. The main event was very interesting and while it wasn't a great hardcore match, they told a great story and thus made it a very compelling match.
Grade: B+
