I love Mark Henry (no homo). I really do. Guy's underrated as hell as a worker, and he's got an understated charisma that can be misinterpreted by some as having none. It was used for just that tonight, Miz accusing Henry of not having any personality. So, what did Henry do? He attempted to rap, thus, redefining the term epic fail for the evening.
Yeah, big mistake. The rapping granny from The Wedding Singer had more rhythm. Stick to your day job, Mark.
Par for the course, I suppose. RAW felt uneven tonight, although it wasn't for lack of trying. Verne Troyer actually showed enthusiasm for the product, interacted with guys (midcarders even!) and tried his best to be a positive part of the show. The problem was that he looked and sounded so frail that it was hard for me to even look at him. God bless the crowd for popping for him, I don't know if I would have been able to do it.
Other than that, I didn't really find all that much glaringly wrong with tonight's episode. That being said, it really wasn't all that memorable either. They advanced the Kofi/Orton feud nicely without really damaging the up-and-coming Kingston, but there was nothing happening that was as memorable as Kofi landing the double legs across Orton through the table at MSG (which is a good thing I suppose). John Cena called out Sheamus and got Carlito. Could have been interesting, and Carlito probably had a bunch of Internet Cena haters nodding in agreement, but it ended up with Carlito getting buried and a confrontation that Sheamus backed out of in order to get more heat for him, which worked. (BTW, I'm not all that broken up about Carlito's fate... he did get to cut a promo, and really, I don't like him all that much anyway).
However, regarding Sheamus, they're treading carefully. Having him back down from Cena was a smart move to get him heat without having him destroy Cena again and thus play up the "the odds are against Cena" angle yet again. Plus, he destroyed Santino and looked like a beast doing it.
The best part? We weren't subjected to a potentially awful Little People's Court segment, and furthermore, Triple H and HBK were allowed to shine as wrestlers and not caricatures for the most part. The main event was pretty good too.
While I can't find anything glaringly wrong with RAW, and while I did enjoy it for the most part, it didn't have the energy that it had last week, and that was even with the shorter runtime. I guess you can't have 'em all though.
Banner by K. Sawyer Paul
