Why does WWE feel the need to go three hours with RAW if they don't know how to fill them? Two replays of the Brock Lesnar PISS promo from last week? Recaps of shit that happened three minutes ago? C'mon son, don't waste my time. The sad part is that there were some good parts to RAW tonight. I'm in the minority, but I liked the ending segment. People who don't want Brock Lesnar to talk miss the point of him talking. It's the perfect character for him, the guy whose ego doesn't allow him to go groveling back to Paul Heyman to talk for him. John Laurinaitis' character is perfect here because he was basically bullied into giving Lesnar what he wanted. I feel like it was the best manifestation of his middle managerial-elemental character in a good long time. John Cena came out and punctuated it with the chain, calling back to the false start on the contract signing at the beginning of the show when Edge came out and beckoned for the "real" Cena to come back.
The match between Sheamus and Mark Henry with Daniel Bryan as the guest referee was also a high mark to the show. In the short time that it took for that match to take place, they hammered home the feud and got the point across for their match Sunday. Sheamus' post match promo was money too.
Outside of those two things though, I struggle to think of what was good about this show. Most disappointing to me was the execution of the CM Punk/Chris Jericho feud. It started out as very much a promising feud that straddled the edge, and predictably, WWE Creative has fucked it up, stagnating the build and treating the story material with all the touch of the Incredible Hulk on fifteen of those celebratory liquor baskets Jericho sent to Punk. It's so one note, and that note is so hacky that it's not even funny. The match Sunday should be good, but man, they really dropped the ball on that one. The sad part is that both Punk and Jericho are performing about as well as they can be expected to. The material is just so repetitive and simple-minded that it doesn't work.
Also, here's hoping that Beth Phoenix didn't really get hurt tonight.
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