WWE Raw 10/10/11: The Good, the Bad and the Meh

Raw came live from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  As always, hit up Kaleb Kelchner's live blog for a recap. I managed to con my wife into watching it with me in exchange for cooking dinner for her, so I'll be adding a few of her remarks throughout the article.

A lot of angles going every which way but resolved, a pay-per-view to hype and a broad angle that needed advancement, there was a lot to deal with in a short show.  How did they do?  Let's find out.

The Good:

+ Opening Segment.  Overall, I thought it was well done.  The opening was nice with Triple H walking out alone, and reverting to his "Game" form on this stick.  Cena, Sheamus, and Punk stuck in character, and Punk got a lot of play here.  Cena was in good form tonight, and Sheamus was surprisingly fun.   The impromptu match with Punk acting like a kid in a candy store at doing commentary came off well.  Good start to the show.  To quote my wife, "Well, that was cool."

+ Vince's Return and Trips' dismissal.  Nice surprise, and something that needed to be done.  Honestly, this was logical, given a few months ago he was still established as the Chairman of the Board by Stephanie.  Miz and Truth were due back soon, and the only way this was going to happen was for Trips to be relieved.   Mrs. Schaefer added, "That sucked".  Understandable, but came off as well as one could hope in a short span.

+ Christian/Morrison.  Overall, this was done simply to certify the heel faction to the audience.  Christian Coalition?   Anyway, quick spot action and typical heel destruction of the face, nothing to write home about or anything ground breaking.  By the book, but came off well.

+ Orton/Henry + Rhodes.  Another quick match with both men hitting their usual spots.  Rhodes running interference was a nice bit of storytelling, and he sounded "absolutely psycho," if you ask my wife. Strong sell for the PPV as well.  Slightly corny with Orton's interjection, but came off well overall. 

+ Air Boom & Ryan/Ziggler, Swagger and Otunga.  Quick match again, quick spots.  More to establish Ryan/Ziggler, but honestly, I liked it.   I hope Evan is OK.   Mrs. Schaefer is now the 9,000,000th person to mistake Mason Ryan for Batista.

+ Punk/ADR + Punk and ADR/Awesome Truth.  Quick bit of storytelling here as well.  Pretty much a slow-paced affair between Del Rio and Punk that picked up its pace after a few minutes.  The re-debut of Awesome Truth was a nice touch, and some classic storytelling with Del Rio walking out and Trips making the save. 

+ PPV Sell.  OK, they got right to the point with this.  Triple H & Punk/Awesome Truth should be a fun match, and Rhodes/Orton is promising.

The Meh:

~ Divas Tag Match.  I needed to mute this segment because Kelly Kelly was giving me a headache.  Fast match, couple of botches.  Really just a filler match.  Nice moonsault by Eve.  Bless my wife for getting me some Advil.

~ Abrupt ending of "Occupy Raw."   I get they had to end it quickly because it was a doomed angle from the start.  There was no other way, logically, to explain the why the entire roster was going to be in Mexico City unless the angle finished.  Fell flat like I feared.  Otherwise, I applaud the fact they resisted the temptation to make Unions look evil.

The Bad:

- Lauri as GM.   I get that Lauri played Triple H from the start.  I get that he's a heel.  But he cannot speak, has no charisma, has no gimmick and is really just wasted pixels on the TV.  My wife commented how he sounded like he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day since elementary school.  Damn I love that woman.  This really does need to end quick.  As in tomorrow.

- J.R.'s firing.  I get they needed to get Lauri over as a heel.  Firing the baby-faced announcer in his home state would normally be a good way, albeit cheap, but they failed here due to two reasons.  The first is that, as I just mentioned, Lauri is a blackhole of the worst variety.  The second is that he never canned the other announcers who walked about before JR.  Mrs. Schaefer picked up on that and wondered "what was up with that?"  I just had to shrug.  Just a botch all around. 

- Cena/Del Rio PPV main event.  I get that Cena has a rematch clause, but I don't really care for this given I just saw it at Night of Champions. My wife is earning smark points tonight wondering why we should care about Del Rio and Cena. 

- Michael Cole going crazy.  I don't like Cole, and it's not from any stand point of the proper reasons I should hate him.  He's annoying when he gets hyper.  A commentating team must tell the story of the match, not detract from it.  He's a storyteller, not a wrestler.  The WWE would be wise to take a cue from Regal or Striker and duct tape Cole's arse to the chair.

- End of an Era?  It's difficult to explain this, but it felt like all the work they did, all the strides they were making, came to an end tonight.  I'll try to sum up below.

Miscellaneous Thoughts: 

To quote Casey Hewitt, "Is it just me, or did somebody press the rewind button about six months?"  That sums it up. 

Dead crowd is dead.  I havn't seen anything that dead since my last visit to the graveyard.

Sheamus had some nice tweener spots tonight in his promo.

Was I the only one to mark at the thought of Punk doing commentary for two hours?

WWE, you are doing it wrong.

It's easy to picture Vince as Buzzcut with Singh (head Raw writer) being Beavis while he and the other writers are being instructed on how to do their job.  The show felt a bit like that tonight.

Orton has a new name in my household.  From here on out, if I drop the term "Pretty Boy" Orton, you can thank Mrs. Schaefer for that.

I could do without Michael Cole cracking out again. 

Did Lauri get promoted or demoted?  He went from V.P. of Talent Relations to Raw's GM. 

Overall Grade: B or D-

Let me explain my grades.  The B is simply for production value.   Nothing overly wrong tonight in terms of storytelling.  Some standard matches, establishment of a new heel faction, two big returns, a "shocking" firing and storyline advancement is normally worth more.

But the walkout angle had massive potential, but there was little they could do with it, so it wound up being dead on arrival.   Beyond that, the logical progression of Trips being canned was needed for Awesome Truth's return.  But it was abrupt.  Overall, nothing overly wrong in and of itself.

The D-, however, stems from the feeling that they undid a summer's worth of work in one night.  Triple H was canned, Lauri is just an effectual a GM as the computer, Punk was established as a cookie-cutter baby face and the broad angles that they were experimenting with felt like they were flatlining tonight. 

I guess I shouldn't be overly surprised, and I could just be over reacting, but the WWE's "grand experiment" ran out of funding tonight.

It really depends on your point of view whether or not this show was a general hit or miss.  Personally, it's hard to really fault the show.  It was above average production wise, but the feeling of deflation was undeniable to me.  I hope they pick it up next week.