LIVE Raw thoughts - November 26, 2012

11:05 - I continue to be intrigued by this Shield/CM Punk connection.  Are they working together?  Is Punk as clueless as he claims?  Punk's acting is perfect right now -- and I'm REALLY glad that Ryback didn't get the best of the Shield (and Punk, for that matter) tonight.  They've got a formula that works right now.  Let the mystery going into TLC whether or not Ryback will win -- not whether or not Punk will retain.

11:03 - I LOVED CM Punk's cartoonish dive over the barricade to get away from Ryback.

10:52 - This whole "Respect" thing needs to stop.  Punk has found his identity as a heel, and the whole respect thing isn't helping.  The fact of the matter is that when guys like Lawler and others would be reluctant about saying they respect Punk, Punk hadn't actually done anything bad yet.  Fans are buying him as a heel now -- why remind them of the lackluster beginning of the turn?

10:49 - I love that Punk wore a Ferris Bueller t-shirt at the Chicago Thanksgiving Parade.  Yes, he almost always wears his t-shirt on TV, but he's a guy who actually has his own identity during outside appearances.  More so than most WWE mainstays.

10:31 - FINALLY!!!  Zack Ryder breaks out the Ghostbusters gear!

10:23 - That was an awesome match and I went into it with the same skepticism as I did Cena/Ziggler.  Basically, I didn't see the guy higher up the card losing, and I didn't think the guy lower on the card should be put in a position to lose.  But Antonio looked like he BELONGED.  And he didn't get pinned or walk away and take a count out loss.  He basically got knocked out and got counted out by consequence (big difference).

By the way, got a kick out of Michael Cole exclaiming, "It wouldn't be the Attitude Era without HBK!" considering that Michaels missed the vast majority of it.

And next time somebody tells you that Ric Flair could wrestle a broomstick, you remind them that Big Show can fight a steel chair!

10:07 - Why, exactly, should Sheamus be the rightful World Champion?

10:00 - Great match AND Ziggler looked great even in defeat.  The problem is, he would've looked even better in victory.  And Jesus, was that the most uncomfortable kissing you've ever seen?  Next time, focus on AJ's face.

9:46 - They did a great job of building up Ziggler's accolades, but here's the problem:  Most people STILL view him as a guy that loses against main eventers.  Don't sacrifice the great job they've done (re)building him up by feeding him to Cena.

9:36 - Annnnd shocker.  Daniel Bryan loses again.

9:27 - In addition to being a great character and awesome technical wrestler, Daniel Bryan also has amazing ring presence.  He never gives the audience a break.  He'll stop mid-action and just start yelling "NO!  NO!  NO!" which will get the fans chanting "YES!  YES!  YES!"  What a great awareness that 95% of the roster does not have.

9:18 - At first I was relieved Bryan lost, because do we REALLY need to see him lose another match?  And then he's put into a match with Rey Mysterio....

9:11 - I've made my feelings on the lazy #1 Contender storyline known.  WWE seems to be in this mindset of building up a midcarder strong and then feeding them to a main eventer, and they rarely recover (just look at Brodus).  What they SHOULD do is build a guy through the midcard, and then make him the challenger to the US or Intercontinental Championship.  This manner of having a guy beat the champion in a non-title match in order to earn a title shot, but then lose the actual title match, does neither competitor any favors.

9:04 - At least AJ keeps bringing up the point that there are no stakes in this storyline.  AJ already stepped down.  Vickie already has the power.  Why do EITHER of them care about this matter?  What does AJ stand to lose?  What does Vickie stand to gain?  This story just seems to be told in the wrong order.

9:01 - No matter how much I don't enjoy this storyline, I can't help but continue to love AJ.

8:56 - We haven't even gone through hour one and we've already seen Vickie three times.

8:50 - Aside from AJ, who seems to have sustained a pretty impressive push, all of these Diva pushes are so short term and abrupt that it's hard to get into them.  Beth and Natalya teamed together and for a few weeks were unstoppable.  Then suddenly Natalya became a legitimate jobber who would lose squash matches.  And within a few months, Beth was losing pretty frequently as well.  It seems like the Divas only exist to lose to whoever is champion or whoever is getting pushed as the challenger.  And then when the higher ups decide that they want to push somebody new, we're supposed to just accept them and forget how they were portrayed just a few weeks earlier.

8:42 - I have to admit that I'm somewhat intrigued by this notion of a faction that fights what they perceive to be injustices.  Here's the question, though:  For the time being, will they be fighting any other injustices aside from Punk's issues with Ryback and Cena?  They did set up the injustice idea with Punk's earlier confrontation with Vickie, so I did appreciate that.

8:19 - When Michael Cole mentioned Rosa being livid, I thought we were going to find out that the whole Brad Maddox thing WAS an angle after all.  And by the way, those security guards really didn't do anything to Ryback.  And that first guy suffered a nasty landing.

8:08 - I'll admit that I was worried for Titus when he didn't even get an entrance (or an in-ring introduction, for that matter), but that was a pleasantly competitive match.  I'm guessing we'll see Punk vs. Ryback in a Tables Match for the WWE Championship.  Hey, isn't it convenient that chairs and tables just so happened to be used in the closing moments of each World title match at the event before TLC?

7:53 - As an aside, I find it funny (or sad) that WWE apparently gave up on the promising Team Punk vs. Team Foley match because, after just one segment, WWE decided they were not pleased with the fan reaction to it.  Yet here we are, a month or so later, and they're still going on with this AJ/John Cena storyline.