WWE Raw thoughts: 4/8/13

As promised, Monday was the Raw after WrestleMania 29, which means it's time to begin my WWE vs. TNA show reviews for the 2013-14 season!

For the sake of maintaining free time, I will only be reviewing the 'A' shows of each company (e.g. WWE Raw and Impact Wrestling). If the time comes where the World Heavyweight Championship becomes exclusively shown on SmackDown again, I'll add it, but as it stands, I can see the top flight champions just fine on the main shows and anything of consequence on other programming winds up shown in recaps anyway.

If something of note happens on WWE SmackDown, Main Event or Slam, or on TNA Xplosion or whatever the hell else programming TNA tries to create, I will make note of it and review it in a separate blog. For now, though, let's discuss Raw.

I'll rate each segment on a 1-10 scale, award/remove bonus points for things like future booking, and end with a show average. Here we go!

John Cena opening promo: I was definitely not a fan of how predictable WrestleMania felt this year, and evidently this crowd wasn't either. They got on Cena from the start, but honestly, it brought out some of his better work. He used his humor specifically to get a rise out of the hostile crowd and was practically in a smug heel role. I also loved when Mark Henry came out, but the segment lost ground when Booker T killed the momentum with his matchmaking. Cena could have made that suggestion or it could have been set with Henry backstage. It just shut everyone down after getting hyped for a title match. Overall, not a bad start. 6/10

Big E Langston (w/AJ & Ziggler) v. Daniel Bryan/Kurt Warner: Short, sweet and to the point. Langston looked good in the (very short match) and kudos to AJ for taking a chest shot like a champ during the entrances. Also, Kurt Warner was here. Nice! I won't rate this very high because matches under 3 minutes don't get rated here and we spent much of the time hyping another program, so I'll go 5.2/10.

Remember when people thought this belt would become
important again? Me either.

Intercontinental Championship: Miz (c) v. Wade Barrett: Barrett's loss of the title at Mania's pre-show was clearly the equivalent of a house show title change. It got a cheap pop to warm up the crowd (real successful there, WWE) and is being forgotten almost immediately. The match itself was solid, and the crowd was into it, so I was ok with it. I rate the match itself as 2.5 stars (out of 5), and anything above four stars on free TV is a 10 for me, so that would make the segment worth 6.25/10.

Vickie/Booker shenanigans and Zeb Colter/Jack Swagger's racism: I like the idea of Orton and Sheamus wanting the same thing, like the idea of feuding GMs, and was bored by the setup. Also, I hate this Swagger/Colter b.s. I'm not sure who keeps insisting on these two, but they're boring at best and offensive at worst. Let's move on. 3/10

Alberto Del Rio v. Swagger/Colter in 2-on-1 handicap: Not even nonstop chants for Ziggler made me care here. Swagger is just dull to watch and I want this feud to die. Jack Swagger is NOT Kurt Angle and Del Rio is NOT Rey Mysterio. Stop trying to revive that awesome feud in this ghastly form. The match was 2 stars but loses points due to utter annoyance. 4.8/10

Ziggler cashes in Money in the Bank... World Heavyweight Championship: Alberto Del Rio (c) v. Dolph Ziggler: These were the best few minutes of the show. The New Jersey crowd popped like the Attitude Era for Ziggler and treated the whole match with real emotion. Ziggler winning felt like a real accomplishment, the way ALL World title victories should be. I've never been huge on Ziggler, but he's grown on me in the last few months, and I'm glad to see him win. The match gets no rating, but this segment gets a 10/10 with a bonus .5 for sheer awesomeness.

Undertaker promo/Shield invasion/Daniel Bryan becomes Spike Dudley of the Brothers of Destruction: Undertaker stuff is great when it's on and I liked how this clearly is setting up Hell No vs. The Shield. I still say they need a main eventer to become a real force, but this was good for what it was. 7.5/10

CoBro/R-Truth v. 3MB: I have nothing to say. This was a jobber-fest and no one was into it. Apparently 3MB is replacing the Divas as the bathroom break. Match was 1.5 stars. 3.75/10

Orton and Sheamus fight for Big Show's honor/Vickie and Booker say IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR TWITTER POLL THINKS!: Why was there a Raw-Active poll here? Did they go in with the plan that Sheamus would win and when he didn't Booker and Vickie just made up something on the fly? Wasn't Booker just being goaded into a power struggle with Vickie? Kudos to teasing someone (probably Orton) turning heel, but it's buried under other questions of basic logic. 3.75/10

Randy Orton v. Sheamus  New Jersey would rather put ring hands, vendors, free agents and the deceased over before what's going on in the ring: Perhaps WWE should have realized a slow, plodding match between guys who have wrestled many, MANY times before would not go over well among the fine people of New Jersey. I feel this match probably should have been cut short once they started doing the wave. My personal favorite chant (though only because the one for the pretzel/ice cream vendors came during commercial) was after Big Show came out, beat up both men, threw two announce chairs at the ring, and then walked out to boos because he wouldn't throw "One more chair! One more chair!" I'll talk more about the crowd at the end. The match was fine, and was probably 3 stars before the beatdown (which will cost the segment), but the crowd is the story here and it deserves points. Let's just say 9/10 for the whole spectacle? Ok then.

Fandango v. ... Who cares who he wrestled? The crowd is dancing! Fandango wrestled Kofi Kingston and Jericho beat up Fandango, but let's be honest. The only thing people cared about was the crowd singing along to Fandango's theme song and dancing in the stands. The Jericho brawl did run a little long, so I guess the whole thing gets 5.5/10.

Paul Heyman speaks/The match teased for Mania that Vince decided should be cut to make room for more video packages: You have to give Paul Heyman credit, even this asylum of nuts keeps quiet when he speaks. He gave some nice teasers before the Rhodes Scholars/Bella Twins faced Tons of Funk. The match was pretty solid, though too short to be anything good or even rate-able. I guess as a whole this section gets 6/10.

John Cena v. Mark Henry/Ryback must feast... on GOLD: Cena and Henry had a forgettable 3-minute embarrassment before Henry inducted Cena into the Hall of Pain (cause THAT'S WHAT HE DO!). Ryback makes the save before beating up Cena for trying to get in on his chants (much to the thrill of the NJ fans). If this was meant to be a heel turn for Ryback, it failed miserably because this crowd LOVED it. The match was a pathetic 1.25 stars, but the thing gets mad points for the beatdowns, song-and-dance (which was still going, by the way) and feud setup brings the whole thing up to a 7.25/10.

Total: I'll just speak about the crowd briefly. Some reviewers weren't happy that they distracted from what was honestly the strongest match on the night before the Big Show's interference. I'd say sure, but please note that, again, that was the strongest match that night. Yeah, there were some nice moments, but the crowd paid to be entertained, and if they aren't then they have every right to make their presence felt.

Honestly, this was probably the best crowd to have after a WrestleMania like Sunday's card. Normal fans get so caught up in rooting interests, and Internet fans get so caught up in workrate and the business side that both sometimes forget that these programs exist to be entertaining. This crowd made sure WWE management knew they didn't find certain aspects of the product entertaining.

And they didn't do it like a West Coast crowd, who just stop paying attention and act bored the whole time. They didn't behave like the maniacs at the ECW Arena or Hammerstein ballroom and chastise the competitors for existing. They didn't go on profanity-laced tirades that would be censored out. They took note of something they liked, and when they weren't entertained, they said, "fine, we'll entertain ourselves! Good luck boring your audience with us around!"

That's what was great about last night's crowd. They made the show fun and made what has been a usually long-winded three hours feel like a re-watchable program. This show had a great Ziggler moment that is the true highlight of the night and red-hot reactions.

Averaged out, the whole thing is 6/10, but +.5 for a monumental title change and +.5 for the crowd brings the whole show to 7/10.

I'll do Impact Wrestling this Thursday night, and then I'll begin the "Good, Bad, and Ugly" column later this week, so stay tuned!

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