WWE Raw Review: May 2, 2011

Hey bleachers! Last night, Raw celebrated the birthday of The Great One, The Rock.

Before this occurred, the WWE paid tribute to the troops that help in the war effort. Flashbacks were shown of the fateful day in 2001, where the Twin Towers were attacked in one of the most brutal acts of terrorism the world has ever seen.

The episode of SmackDown which paid tribute to this was the first public assembly in the USA and flashbacks were shown of this also. They were showing that the show still goes on even in the face of adversity.

Lillian Garcia (where’s she been hiding?) sang the national anthem to a patriotic audience who erupted with huge USA chants after she had finished.

The Rock then arrived to kick off Raw to a deafening reception. Hearing Justin Roberts introduce The Rock was great—I never noticed it when The Rock came back, but I’ve always wondered how Justin Roberts would have introduced the stars of the past.

Rock thanked the army and the people that caught Osama Bin Laden and cited the pledge of allegiance with the crowd.

The he began to cut a fabulous promo, showing pictures from his past—he looked like he could have been a Motown singer. He missed his way clearly.

The Raw GM interrupted The Rock’s most famous catchphrase and Cole took great pleasure in this. Rock told Cole to come to the ring and read the message face to face to The Rock. Cole remarked that he isn’t scared of anyone and only associates with winners—revealing a Celtics shirt at the same time.

I don’t know a thing about American sports, but I would assume that’s like wearing a Manchester City top in a crowd full of Manchester United fans i.e. not a good idea.

The Raw GM and Cole want Rock to apologise for his actions—which he did to my surprise. However, Cole then found himself on the canvas after a Rock Bottom, receiving a People’s Elbow.

The Rock then introduced Pitbull. I personally have never heard of him—I assumed he was some sort of modern day singer. The girls were mesmeric dancers. I wish they had things like that at football matches.

J.R came out for the rest of the night much to my delight.

John Morrison came out for a match with R-Truth but didn’t even make it down the ramp before being brutally attacked from behind by the second best character to come out of the minds of WWE creative in the past six months.

R-Truth executed his reverseRKO thing at ringside and Morrison looked like he landed funny. Nevertheless, he took another reverse Rock Bottom at the top of the stage after being helped to the back. R-Truth has won a place in my favourite character list.

Next Kelly Kelly and Maryse were scheduled to compete but as soon as the match started Kharma’s music began. She has the best music I’ve ever heard for a Diva. It’s even better than Chyna’s—and hers was pretty good.

She came down the ramp at the same speed as The Undertaker and demolished Maryse. She weirdly left Kelly Kelly alone—who was frozen in fear in the corner of the ring. Kharma seems to be stamping her authority on the Divas division.

A backstage segment was next, with The Rock shown to have every Diva clinging to his every word. Kozlov announces he has a birthday present for The Great One. Santino came out dressed as the character from Fast Five, Hornswoggle as the Scorpion King and The Great Khali as the tooth fairy.

Ron Simmons was revealed to be stood behind the Rock and said what we were all thinking—“Damn!”

I still can’t believe I left that off my catchphrase list.

A match for the WWE Championship match was next. I was thinking as the superstars entered the arena that I would love The Miz to win the title back. It would be brilliant and would completely shake up the WWE Universe and the IWC.

Cena started off strong but lost momentum when he became distracted by Alex Riley. This allowed The Miz to gain control of the match, where he stayed through the commercial break. Cena managed to administer a five knuckle shuffle but did not manage the Attitude Adjustment. Despite this reversal, he locked in the STF but Miz made it to the ropes.

The Miz removed the turnbuckle pad and tried to force Cena into it but couldn’t manage it so gave him a neck and backbreaker combination instead.

It should be noted that by this point, the crowd were electric and were hanging on to every move that happened. They were extremely vocal and were enjoying this match like it was the main event at WrestleMania. That’s partly because it was easily ten times better than that match and out-shined it in every possible way.

The ref was taken out of action by accident and The Miz tapped out of the STF while the ref was outside.

When the referee returned to the ring, Cena kicked out of a Skull-crushing Finale and The Miz kicked out of the Attitude Adjustment!   

Miz then stole a victory by smashing Cena in the face with the title (I didn’t think this was allowed)

I jumped up out of my chair and punched the air with glee only to see the decision reversed. What? Really? If that happened everytime someone cheated we’d have no new champions!

They then showed the footage of Cena revealing the death of Osama Bin Laden at Extreme Rules.

A tag team match full of old SmackDown stars was scheduled next. Rey Mysterio and Kofi Kingston took on Drew McIntyre and Jack Swagger. It was a decent match with some good spots but I am really annoyed that Rey Mysterio won again—cleanly.

This is getting ridiculous now. He needs to lose—in a two minute squash match.

Del Rio was sat on commentary and started moaning about Rey Mysterio. I have a feeling these two will feud in the coming weeks.

Dolph Ziggler and Vicky Guerrero got Rock a present—Mae Young stood behind a cake.

Rock berated the couple and told Vicky she will never be as beautiful as Mae Young. He then placed a huge smacker on her lips.

Cena arrived and told Rock that his present was the WWE Championship, and Rock’s chance to win it.

Mason Ryan took on Kane in the final match of the night.

Did anyone else notice as soon as the “this fire burns” lyric came on Punk’s music, Kane arrived? Intentional or not it was pretty cool.

Mason Ryan showed unrivalled power against Kane and got disqualified when Punk intervened on his behalf. He didn’t get any offence in on Kane though so I didn’t understand why Ryan was disqualified. Nevertheless, a beatdown on Kane ensued by the Nexus until The Big Show turned up.

Mason Ryan took out the giant and left without his teammates. I hope this is a sign that he is about to break out on his own.

The Rock came out to end the show. Vince McMahon made a surprise appearance, thanked The Rock for everything and showed him a video package that had been made for the Great One’s birthday. Thank you for coming home.

Confetti and streamers then fired out over the whole arena on one big celebration. It certainly was confetti-o'clock.

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below! I do my best to reply to all comments that warrant it. Thanks for reading.

Also if you missed my SmackDown review last week, please take a moment to read it.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/686932-wwe-smackdown-review-april-29-2011

Also please check out my review for Extreme Rules.

Part one

Part two

Thanks again to all those that read my articles.