WWE Raw Review: April 18, 2011

Hey bleachers! I’m back with my weekly Raw review and this week, Raw came to us from the O2 arena in London, England. Had the commentators not mentioned it, it still would have been obvious due to the huge Double Decker bus and telephone box on the stage. Oh yeah and the enormous British flag hung up next to the TitanTron. That’s what Britain looks like.

J.R was on commentary again this week, sitting next to Jerry Lawler. You don’t get better than that! Cole was still in his Colemine however. There’s a downside to everything nowadays.

R-Truth came out first to a generous reaction from the crowd and cut a promo about his upcoming Extreme Rules match. He explained that when he wins the WWE Championship he will “fight” everybody and be one of the most “fighting” champions ever. He mustn’t have received the email regarding banned terms on WWE television.

Morrison interrupted him and embarrassed Truth by saying he was out of shape—going as far as to show footage of Truth drinking water during the gauntlet match last week. He also criticised him for smoking and challenged him to a match for his spot at Extreme Rules.

Truth said he was in good shape, did an amusing dance and accepted the challenge. The promo wasn’t very good. They stepped over each other’s lines and killed the electric crowd—apart from the dance by R-Truth, it wasn’t very funny.

The match outshined the promo by a country mile. It had some very good technical moves, and was a very good match to open Raw with. Morrison ultimately won with Starship Pain and gained R-Truth’s spot at Extreme Rules.

Morrison extended his hand, but something in R-Truth changed and he proceeded to batter Morrison on the outside. He was met with chants of “Who are ya?” from the English crowd. What an English chant. I loved it!

R-Truth hit his ReverseRKO thing on the outside and then lit up in the arena! I don’t know whether that’s acceptable in America but it isn’t here in England! The crowd chanted “That’s illegal” and rightly so! I’ve heard of heel turns but actually doing illegal things to get over as one takes the cake.

“Think of the children!”

Evan Bourne arrived to take on a new, improved Dolph Ziggler. Yes that’s right, he’s cut his hair. Apparently he has a new attitude but he looked the same to me (barring the haircut of course). It was an excellent match between the two. Dolph Ziggler met an airborne Evan Bourne with a dropkick that was pulled off excellently.

Evan Bourne eventually went for AirBourne but Ziggler rolled out of the way and gave Evan a ZigZag for the win. That made two good matches already. I was starting to wonder whether Raw would be able to maintain this quality throughout the whole night.

The Miz came out with his protégé and expressed his annoyance that he is no longer facing the “Hip Hop Refugee,” but his former tag team partner John Morrison. He also revealed to the crowd that it’s in a steel cage match and he was annoyed about that also.

He began a sit-down protest in the ring before Sin Cara interrupted the party—just as Miz was doing his catchphrase. I love the fact that Sin Cara has done his entrance correctly the same amount of times in England as he has in America. It looked extremely impressive this time as his arms and legs were more spread out and he didn’t touch the ropes.

John Cena joined Cara in storming the ring and the GM set up a tag match between the four superstars.

It was yet again, another decent match. Sin Cara exploded with a variety of acrobatic moves off the tag, impressing the vocal English audience. Riley stopped his momentum however, by pulling him off the apron.

The Miz left the arena just as Riley received an attitude adjustment and Sin Cara hit a springboard moonsault to win the match. I say he hit it—I’m fairly certain he missed it.

Eve took on Nikki Bella next in what was a quick, boring match. Eve Torres won with a roll up, and was celebrating until interrupted by Michael Cole.

I’ll say it before I describe it—this next segment was awful. A queen impersonator came out to knight Cole and after she had finished, he placed a huge smacker on her lips.

He wasn’t finished though bleachers, oh no—he only wanted the best commentary team ever to kiss his feet! Jerry was taken care of by Swagger and J.R was forced into Cole’s fungal foot by the ankle lock. It looked horrible. He had some sort of big scab all across his big toe and despite me being 99.9 percent sure it was just make-up, it still made me gag.

Santino faced Sheamus in what was, for all intents and purposes, a squash match. Sheamus was in control throughout the entire contest and finished it with a vicious Brogue kick to Santino, who didn’t know where he was.

Randy Orton took on Punk next in a WrestleMania rematch in the final segment of Raw—the New Nexus were banned from ringside. 50 percent of the crowd were on Punk’s side and the other 50 percent on Orton’s. The crowd were well into the match, with alternate chants of the Superstar’s finishers echoing throughout the arena. I wasn’t though. Don’t get me wrong the match was O.K but it wasn’t brilliant.

I’d have rather have seen another bout between Ziggler and Evan Bourne than Punk versus Orton. I wasn’t even into their match at WrestleMania.

Punk was in control for the majority of the match which seems to be a running theme whenever these two face each other. It was the same old story but with a twist. Orton won with a roll up (not the kind R-Truth likes) as opposed to an RKO out of nowhere.

The New Nexus came down to decimate Orton and Mason Ryan took control. Once Orton had been subdued, Ryan shoved his teammates away from him, and went into a position ready to punt him. He even told Punk to “back off!”

Punk managed to bring Ryan to his senses and went to punt Orton himself, only to be RKO’d for his troubles. Is anyone surprised by this? The broadcast ended with Punk kicking the ropes in anger.

This was a solid episode of Raw but for me the ending was something we’ve all seen before and because of this it came off as weak. The R-Truth and Morrison promo at the start was also weak, but it was more than made up for by the matches on the card. There wasn’t a lot of promotion regarding Extreme Rules but there is always next week.  

Please leave comments in the section below on what you made of Truth’s heel turn, or any other pressing matters you want to discuss.

Thanks for reading once again. I’ll be back on Saturday with my weekly SmackDown review.