Well, Raw starts out strong as Mick Foley comes out to cut a fantastic promo. I'm unbelievably excited that he may be wrestling again, as he is one of the best wrestlers in the history of the business. Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero come out, and Ziggler does a pretty promo. He has really good charisma and is a fantastic heel. I love the image of the two of them facing off in the ring, they look like complete opposites. As Ziggler keeps talking, he brings up the possibility of him and Foley facing off at Wrestlemania, and that would be an amazing match. As Ziggler ranted, I kept wanting Foley to get him in the mandible claw, but it isn't meant to be as CM Punk comes out. This isn't the best promo he's ever cut, though the reference to John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) is alright, though the reference to cross dressing was odd. John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) comes out with the essentially the same thing he says every week, though this time he denies Foley's request to take part in the Royal Rumble, after which Vickie busts out with an amazing evil laugh.
REALLY? Air Boom lost their title in a non-televised match? WTF? I guess the WWE isn't really trying to make their tag division interesting again, because that's just stupid. And then neither team gets a full intro. That is incredibly disappointing. The match is alright, but it doesn't help the tag division look more legitimate. I am incredibly disappointed, as tag matches are often fantastic. After the match we get a brief segment featuring John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) and Jericho. It's pretty fantastic too – Jericho proves that you don't need to speak to have an awesome promo.
We come back for a brief segment with Zack Ryder and Eve, where he played up the injury and insisted on still defending his title against Jack Swagger. I hope he keeps it, as he's far more interesting than Swagger. Unfortunately, Swagger essentially squashes Ryder, though Ryder sells the pre-existing injuries very well. It's still kind of depressing. I've heard he hasn't gotten good ratings, which is baffling. After the break there's another brief segment where John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) apologizes to Ryder for making him compete.
Then Perez Hilton comes out as a guest ring announcer for a Diva tag match: Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox vs. the Bellas. Unsurprisingly, it's a weak fight because only Kelly Kelly gets into the ring against the Bellas, though Perez interfering was pretty funny, as was his awful selling the hit from the Bellas. We then get a clip from Smackdown (which I didn't get to see, which is why I didn't review it) showing Big Show running over AJ. It's like a truck running over a chipmunk.
I like the little clip of the '92 Royal Rumble, but then it's always a pleasure to see Ric Flair wrestle. Then R-Truth comes out, but before he can say anything Wade Barrett comes out. Barrett earns some easy heat by insulting Foley. R-Truth is quickly becoming one of my favorite faces. He's extremely funny, and is clearly having a lot of fun. Miz comes out of the crowd to attack Truth, then Sheamus comes out to support Truth, leading to Teddy Long coming out and declaring an over the top rope challenge with all four of them. Wade gets eliminated first, and it takes a lot longer for the next elimination. Not a bad match overall, with some good swings in momentum, though I think R-Truth took a nap for a while. R-Truth ends up winning by eliminating both Sheamus and the Miz at the same time. After the match we get a segment where Cena yells at John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) and gets a match against Kane at Royal Rumble and a match against Jack Swagger next.
I really enjoy the curbstomp that Cena delivers to Swagger. Unlike the Cena haters, I think he's great, and the ruthlessness of his assault on Swagger is a great way of showing the effect that Kane has been having on him. I'm almost sad that Kane interrupts it just as Cena's about to drop the steel steps on Swagger. Kane really reminds me of Palpatine in his brief promo: embrace the dark side, young Cena.
Brodus Clay! I love everything about this gimmick. He was a generic monster heel before, while now he has a fantastic personality. JTG, on the other hand, is boring in the extreme and deserves to be a jobber. Everything about this is fantastic, as he jiggles and disturbs JTG, then feels him up. Suplex! My bad! The Bomb Funky (I guess is what he's calling it) gets JTG for the three count. I'm so excited to see what he does from here on.
We get a recap from Smackdown after the break, once again showing the truck run over the chipmunk. Daniel Bryan comes out, insulting Big Show and overall acting like a heel. He comes off kind of creepy, and it works. I don't know if the weird vaguely abusive boyfriend will pay out in the long run.
The match starts strongly between Ziggler and Punk, then Bryan and Ziggler have an embarrassing botch on a simply and frequently used move. I get frustrated that Jericho doesn't get tagged in (I think Mark Henry is injured, which would explain why he isn't getting tagged) Punk gets a Macho Elbow on Otunga, then tags in Jericho, then... starts working the crowd and tags in Bryan and walks out of the arena. Jericho is totally trolling the crowd! We get some escalation of the possible feud between Mark Henry and Daniel Bryan, and then Mick Foley comes in! Foley has joined Punk's team, which now consists of only Punk and Foley. The crowd is deafening as Ziggler starts dominating Punk. It's exciting to watch him wrestle again. I start cheering along with the crowd when he pulls out Mr. Socko and applies the Mandible Claw to Otunga for the win. Except John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) comes out to deny that Mick Foley was ever part of the match, resulting in a nice verbal smackdown from CM Punk. This is one of the best rants that Punk has gone on since the one before Money in the Bank. Once John Laurinitis (The Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw) gets the mic back, Mick Foley starts laying into him. This actually a pretty good confrontation – Laurinitis is clearly channeling Vince McMahon for this, and he does a damn good job. However, he then clobbers Mick Foley with the mic and stalks out, gaining even more heat in the process. Very well done.
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