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11:15 - Legit or not, I have to wonder if it was smart to have Rock reading the song lyrics off of the Titan Tron after he was criticized for writing lines on his wrist (again, even if they were planted). I thought Rock's promos were great, but were hampered by them going too long. I don't know how many songs he did -- maybe 5? But only 3 were really great. And the We Will Rock You part kinda dragged on too. I think it would've been an awesome promo if it was a little shorter. But overall, pretty strong Raw.
11:06 - Haha, the line about Cena having a wife while making out with Eve was pretty funny.
10:51 - Thank goodness Christian is back! I'm guessing he'll be announced as Johnny Ace's third man on Smackdown.
10:34 - That Jericho promo initially made me uncomfortable. Not because of the subject matter, per se, but because it was so unnecessary. It hearkens back to Jericho/Triple H. The story is simple....why can't it just be about the WWE Championship? Or proving that you're the best? Why bring in a whole new element? However, I do have to admit that I enjoyed the "I'm going to drive you to drinking" spin on it. So I'm not fully against it. Yet.
10:28 - Just think....Miz could potentially go from successfully defending the WWE Championship against the biggest star in the company in the last match at WrestleMania....to being on a team in which David Otunga is the team captain.
10:24 - And the CM Punk beard is officially back! Thank goodness. Let's not try that clean shaven thing again, mmmkay?
10:23 - Did I understand that K-Mart commercial correctly? If you spend $30 on gear, you can spend $75 on a chair?
10:21 - Yeah, I like the guy from Psych. He's funny on the show and he's having fun tonight. Good for him.
10:14 - An overall effective exchange between Shawn Michaels and Undertaker. They did a good job of establishing several things. Will Shawn call it down the middle? Which beef is greater, his one with Triple H or his one with Undertaker? Does he care more about Undertaker losing or not allowing Triple H to win? And as I noted on Twitter, I just love how the condescending pat on the arm is becoming a trend in this storyline. It began with Triple H patting the Undertaker after his initial challenge. It continued when Undertaker did it to Triple H, following his impassioned acceptance. And we just saw it tonight with Shawn. Great stuff.
10:09 - For some reason, the image of the Undertaker as a backstage gossip queen makes me chuckle.
9:48 - One of the former writers on Twitter suggested Brodus Clay as one of Teddy's babyfaces to counter Mark Henry. I think that's an awesome idea, and they have a built in story: Johnny Ace continuously held off Brodus' debut despite his weekly promises. Then once he gained momentum, Ace took him off of television. It works.
9:45 - Eve Torres is amazingly hot and I love her heel turn. What the crap is Beth wearing? And Miz needs to lower that tie clip.
9:36 - That was some interesting booking. I have to question why they felt the need to squash Kofi and R-Truth. Wouldn't they have gotten the same point across by just having Otunga and Henry double team Santino? Why make Kofi and Truth look like such schlubs?
9:30 - Aksana imitating Santino's march down the aisle was pretty funny. And there we have it, Santino and David Otunga are the team captains of Team Teddy and Team Johnny, respectively.
9:21 - I love these highly competitive matches between two guys essentially at the same level. When they have a match like this -- opposed to, say, Sheamus' decisive wins over Miz and Mark Henry -- BOTH guys look great. Sheamus doesn't look weak for a hard fought win because he still won cleanly. And Dolph looks like he can hang with Sheamus. Awesome match.
9:18 - AJ on my TV means awesome.
9:07 - At first I thought Cena's rap got off to a rough start. It wasn't his delivery (I know he can do a fast paced rap, he just slows it down for the audience's sake), it was just that the lines weren't that great. However, after the "boobies" line, things turned around significantly (for the better). Here's the thing, though.....do you think they'd be willing to stick with THIS Cena for the rest of the build? Or even the rest of the show?
9:03 - LOVE that John Cena came out to "Basic Thuganomics" and wearing a jersey and chain. HATED that Jerry Lawler lamely introduced him. A little surprised he's still getting booed, given his appearance.
Team Johnny:
Christian, Alberto Del Rio, Mark Henry (the three guys who supported him at Elimination Chamber), Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger (the two guys who supported him during the GM swap), and David Otunga (his personal counsel)
Team Teddy is a bit harder to figure out, since most of the people that have been supportive of him are either preoccupied (Big Show) or aren't wrestlers (Booker T). The obvious choices are Santino (his personal assistant) and Kofi Kingston (the one who supported him during the GM swap). I'd say those two are definite. Then there's Zack Ryder, who has an established rivalry with Johnny Ace AND is also Long's former assistant. But his story with Eve seems to be in an entirely different area of the show, so it's tough to see how he fits in. Ezekiel Jackson has been with Long lately, but he's been so incredibly jobbed out that I can't imagine he has a place on the WrestleMania card. R-Truth has been teaming with Kofi and needs a place on the card, so I guess he fits. Who else? A returning Bourne? A returning Mysterio? What do you think?
11 comments:
Yeah, there are a lot of heels that could be on Ace's team (Ziggler, Swagger, Miz, Henry, Christian, Del Rio, Otunga are all options. The face team seems like it'll end up being awfully weak though. If Mysterio is back in time that would be a big bonus, but otherwise, you're talking Kingston, Truth, Santino, and....umm...they'll probably shove Khali in because they hate me. After that you're talking about shoving Ryder in when he's still selling crippling injuries, or bringing back someone unexpected (possible), or using announcers like Booker T., or using what are, essentially, total jobbers at this point. Says a lot about the lack of strong midcard faces.
Incidently I'm fine with the 6 on 6 match, especially if they're not doing MitB (which they're obviously not). It's another example, by the way, of why I thought the whole "People will be left off the card because of the Rock!" is total crap. If Rock wasn't on the card and they had to shift things around and put someone else into a match (just for argument, say Kane gets Cena instead and Ziggler gets Orton), then they probably make this a 5 on 5 match instead, that's all.
I was a little confused by that Undertaker/HBK promo. It sounded awesome but shouldn't Shawn have had a big goofy grin on his face during Undertaker's intense part? And maybe he could shout "I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I" over it a couple times. I thought that's how you were supposed to build big matches.
Or have a rock concert.
You know what though, if done right (and they won't do it right, I'm sure), that's fine. They did it for Austin/Rock and it was a strong segment I thought. However I'm sure you're right in that it won't help, because I don't think current WWE can pull it off, plus it was heel Rock.
But I don't believe any storyline has ever been enhanced by one person doing an intense promo and the other no selling it with a big grin on his face while acting like a two year old and talking over it (and not in an equally intense arguing back and forth way).
If the team is Otunga, Henry, Miz, Ziggler, Swagger, and Del Rio (or if Christian replaces one of those guys), Team Captain Otunga would be the only person on his team who hasn't won either the WWE or World Title.
Meanwhile, excellent chance NOBODY on Team Teddy will have ever won a world title. Except, shudder, Khali if he makes it. Or Mysterio if he's healthy by then.
Jericho: I agree, it wasn't necessary, but I did think they handled it pretty well and I'm not automatically against it. Willing to wait and see. I don't quite think it's like the HHH situation...the biggest issue there was that they allowed a second person to completely eclipse the Undisputed Champion. In this case, even if this issue was put front and center instead of Best in the World, it'd still be about Jericho and Punk. I do think, if nothing else, it gives Punk's character a little more depth, something they usually ignore. As long as they don't go too far with it and start ignoring the fact that these two are fighting for the WWE championship and to prove they're the best, I'm okay with it.
Kane/Orton: It's difficult to express how little I care about this. If I were to say "I don't care at all", I would not be doing justice to how much I do not care.
Regarding Rock/Cena, I think you might be a bit hard on Cena. I mean, that episode of Raw alone, Rock sang Yankee Doodle. The week before he was talking about Chinese food and Twitter. Rock spends A LOT of time goofing around. And his intense promos aren't really based on his content, he's just yelling. Cena's done a fair amount of serious promos the past few weeks, and I think his grin came off more as condescending (like HBK when he left the ring after patting Undertaker on the shoulder) than goofy.
Also, you hit the nail RIGHT on the head with Kane/Orton. I think it's the only segment this entire show I haven't mentioned a thing about in my LIVE thoughts. I even mentioned the quick Divas discussion. Nothing about Orton excites or interests me.
I know you might not agree, but I think Rock has a history of getting intense at the right time, whereas Cena doesn't. The two weeks prior to last week were good, but other than that, Cena, often, seems to get intense at the most random times (example: His night after Summerslam flip out at Del Rio ripping Del Rio as a terrible wrestler when Del Rio didn't even cash in on him) and jokey when he shouldn't be. The pat, to me, was worlds different; it was a callback to when HBK wanted a rematch with the Undertaker and Undertaker refused with a pat, leading to HBK fighting for a shot at the Rumble and then later attacking Taker and costing him the title. And when Taker got intense, Shawn sold it. You don't have to sell it with fear, but sell it with anger back...don't sell it with a grin. It takes away from it.
As for tonight, both were fine. I always appreciate when Cena does something more "unique" (I know it's his old character but it's different from the same old Cena he's been playing for a long time now) and The Rock had some good stuff and some funny lines. But seriously, we've had a lot of joke promos or insult promos, it's time to get physical here. If neither guy attacks the other next week, I'm going to be very disappointed. I can buy it for Undertaker/HHH because it's just built up so differently...this feud I think needs a little physicality. I don't care which one lays out the other next week, but I want to see a Rock Bottom or an AA, and not on Mark Henry.
Oh I completely agree that Rock has the ability to get very intense. I just don't think it's fair to let Rock dictate when they should be intense and when they should be jokey.
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