Monday, August 16, 2010

Instant Feedback: Needed More Green Man

Coming off the heels of an underwhelming SummerSlam, you'd think that they'd have a slam-bang RAW to reinvigorate things. Yeah, about that. RAW tonight was flat. The opening segment kinda sucked. Comedy Cena is usually terrible and tonight was no exception. I mean, c'mon, a gay pun on Gabriel? Weak. The matches weren't much better. The action was good, but the finishes, especially to Orton/Gabriel and Edge/Slater, were kinda weak. One countout finish, fine, you could have done that with Edge and Slater, but for Orton/Sheamus too, especially when it should have been a DQ win for Orton after Sheamus came down and attacked him before the countout period was up. Just lazy booking all around.

I did like the cannibalization of Darren Young though. It gave a shot in the arm to a quickly flagging Nexus angle. I'm glad they're trimming guys and not bloating the concept like WCW did with the nWo. I was also pleasantly surprised with how well Slater and Young worked tonight. The best I've seen them ever. Slater has taken some pretty big leaps in the last few weeks, and I'm starting to see what the FCW guys saw in him when they strapped him down there in God's Waiting Room. I also dug the Bryan/Miz and Riley interactions. Seeing Miz give folks the Skull-Crushing Finale on the briefcase never gets old, and it doesn't hurt that Bryan sold it like a Champ.

As for the guest hosts... Charlie Day was killing it. Too bad he didn't nearly get enough screen time. I know they were there hawking their shitty rom-com, but you can't have Charlie Day co-host RAW and not have him break out Green Man or Day Man or the Birds of War. Christ. Hopefully, he'll be back as part of an It's Always Sunny ensemble with at least Glenn Howerton and Rob McIlhenny, if not the whole gang.

But yeah, RAW was definitely lackluster tonight, and a lot of it had to do with the in-ring, specifically the finishes and even the match length. Tonight wasn't one of those nights where the shorter match was the better route, but then again, how ready are these Nexus rooks to be in longer matches? That was a huge, huge flaw that I don't think anyone thought out when this angle began. Or maybe they were hoping they wouldn't have had to have fired Daniel Bryan when they did and they'd have him anchor them from an in-ring standpoint. Who knows. But what I do know is that they didn't do a great job kicking off the second half of the year tonight at all.

And the best part? It's a double rainbow taping, so the malaise will most likely creep into next week.

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