WWE RAW Review – 6th May
The 1041st episode of Monday Night RAW came to us live from Roanoke, Virginia. Heading into the show, the WWE was hyping a major angle involving Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar, as they invaded the WWE headquarters. What does that mean and how does it fit into the storyline? We will find out. Also, going into the show, the other major angle set up was between Ryback and John Cena, as Cena’s injury was played on last week’s RAW, which also saw Ryback turning his back on John Cena. Where does this leave The Shield? Are Cena’s days as the WWE champ numbered? Also, after his match last week on Smackdown!, Daniel Bryan was attacked by the members of The Shield, and was left lying down. Where does this leave the tag team champions? We’ll find out tonight.
RAW kicked off with Cena coming down to a mixed reaction. The WWE champ did a little ‘Yes! No!’ charade like Daniel Bryan, and it ended with Cena getting serious and telling the fans his job was to do his best every week. Vickie came out and plugged in other matches on the Extreme Rules PPV card, and brought down Ryback to name the stipulation for their match. Cena said he didn’t care about the stipulation, and that he just wanted to shut Ryback up. Ryback chose the stipulation, and it will be a Last Man Standing match. A boring opener with failed comedy by Cena, and Ryback was monotonous on the mic as always. He needs a manager like Paul Heyman or Zeb Colter.
The announcers kept plugging in about the visit of Heyman and Lesnar to the WWE HQ, and showed some pictures and tweets from the WWE employees in the HQ.
Randy Orton defeated Damien Sandow
Orton came down first to a huge ovation, and Sandow followed. Sandow did his own version of Orton’s intro, which is arguably the best part of the show! That was funny and true. Anyway, it was a basic match up and was a rehash of their last match. It didn’t make much sense as Orton had a clean victory over Sandow just a few days ago. Orton finished Sandow with an RKO for the pin and the win. Post-match, as Randy approached the top of the ramp, Big Show came out of nowhere and delivered a KO punch to put Orton down, who was then tended to by medical personnel. Orton needs a new feud, as this is getting stale now.
Next up, Fandango will be in action! Jericho comes out first to a big pop. He takes the mic and makes fun of Fandango’s name, and says his performance will be judged tonight by him and two other guests. The Tons of Funk come out along with the Funkadactyles. They’re followed by Fandango, who is given a ‘2 – 1 – 2’ score by the three judges for his entrance. This is followed by R–Truth coming down.
R–Truth defeated Fandango by count out
This was more of an angle than a match. R–Truth dropped Fandango with an Axe kick, and did a little dance which got a ’10 – 10 – 42’ from the judges. Fandango then took his valet and returned to the back to get counted out. The big ideas of the creative, ladies and gentlemen!
Backstage, D–Bry was being interviewed when he said he could beat Ryback. He wanted a re–match. Ryback appeared and said D-Bry wasn’t 100%, and so he wouldn’t accept it. Kane appeared and challenged Ryback for a match in the main event of the show.
ADR (With Ricardo) defeated Dolph Ziggler (With Big E and AJ) via DQ
While ADR and Dolph were going at it, Swagger’s music started as he and Zeb came down to join the commentary. The match went for 15 minutes, and the end came when Big E threw ADR into Swagger for the DQ. Post match, Swagger annihilated both Dolph and ADR with a ladder, and also dropped Ricardo and Big E! Swagger left with bodies lying everywhere. That was a good segment to push the Ladder match at Extreme Rules.
WWE plugged in about its partnership with Yahoo! WWE will air a pre–show to RAW on Yahoo! which will go for 30 minutes.
Backstage segment with Kaitlyn, Natalya and the Funkadactyles about Kaitlyn’s ‘Mystery man’. Why would anyone care about this? I don’t know. Natalya suggested Khali should go undercover to find who the guy is. The girls left as we see the Bellas listening to their conversation and laughing about it.
The Shield defeated the team of Kofi and the Usos
A good tag team match that went for about 10 minutes. I’ll give the credit to the creative where it’s due. The Shield have been booked like gold! They got the victory after dominating the face team, and Ambrose picked up the victory for his team. The way Ambrose stared at the US title after the match was simply amazing! I am rooting for him to become the WWE champion in a year’s time.
Antonio Cesaro defeated Zack Ryder
A squash match that saw Cesaro dominating Ryder. Post match, Cesaro delivered a short promo where he criticized WWE’s way of treating him. He said none of the guys backstage could hold a candle to him, which is true. Good promo by Cesaro, I feel bad for him. He was booked very badly, and hopefully, this is a sign of things to come.
Paul Heyman’s segment via satellite was next. He showed us the footage of him and Brock walking into the WWE HQ and intimidating people. They walked into HHH’s office and completely destroyed it. Heyman ended it by throwing a ‘I’m a Paul Heyman Guy’ card. That was fun. Triple H then came out to interrupt Heyman, and went on to deliver a pointless promo about him being extreme and the arena being his second office. That took about 10 minutes which could have been wrapped up in 5. If they needed to kill time, how about giving Natalya a match? I guess she’s too talented for that.
Funkadactyles and Kaitlyn defeated AJ and the Bellas
The match went on for 3 minutes and saw the Bellas walking away from AJ, and Kaitlyn ended things with a spear. Yes, that’s pretty much what happened.
Mark Henry came out to cut a promo. Henry called the fans ‘puppets’. That was awesome. Henry played a video package of all his assaults on Sheamus. Sheamus came out, and showed his own collage of attacks on Henry. It’s wonderful that these guys spend their quality time on making a video of their attacks on each other. Anyway, Sheamus and Henry finally agreed on one thing, that they don’t have to wait for Extreme Rules. But Barrett’s music hits, as he has a match with Sheamus.
Sheamus defeated Wade Barrett
Sheamus and Wade have faced each other on numerous occasions, from the time they were in the indies in UK. Anyway, Sheamus defeated Barrett by delivering the White Noise after 5 minutes. Post-match, Henry assaulted Sheamus with a belt and dropped him with a WSS on the floor. That was a good post-match beat down.
Ryback defeated Kane
Main event time! Kane and Ryback went back and forth, and after 8 minutes, Ryback was able to get Kane on his shoulders for the Shell Shocked! After the match, The Shield came down, but D–Bry ran down to even the odds, or so he thought. Ryback crawled out of the ring, but down came Cena. A huge suicide dive through the ropes by D–Bry. But Ryback came back with a chair and hit Cena with it. The show closed with Ryback standing tall over Cena.
Rating: ** (Out of 5 stars)
A below average show, which should have been much better. They concentrated more on forwarding the storylines, but that wasn’t done well. Too much time was wasted on silly promos and the show felt stretched out. I wouldn’t mind it if WWE went back to 2 hours of RAW instead of 3. Anyway, that does it for the RAW Review.