WWE Monday Night Raw DVR Review: Muppets Good, Most Everything Else...Meh

There are probably half a million reviews of Monday Night Raw online within 20 minutes of the show's ending (give or take a few hundred thousand). Somehow, I manage to avoid all of them every week. I am an early-to-bed, early-to-riser because, for job purposes, it is a necessity.  Therefore, I DVR Raw (as well as Impact Wrestling and Smackdown) and watch the next day. 

I also work from home while I watch my three-year-old daughter, who is not yet allowed to watch wrestling. This means I can only watch my recorded shows while she is asleep or otherwise occupied.

So, to avoid her learning how to perfectly execute an elbow drop from the top of the couch, it sometimes takes me 24 hours or more to get through a two-hour episode of Raw. Otherwise, I will be in trouble with the wife, such as the time my daughter told a lady at the grocery store to "Take care and spike your hair."

That is why this brief Raw review is only now being written, and why all of my future reviews may come a couple days after the shows themselves. As for this past Monday, there was some to like about Raw, but much to dislike—a lot more than usual.

The Good

The Muppets.  I am a Muppet Show geek—I even own the DVDs. There was some generally funny interaction with the Superstars: Kermit referring to Vicki Guerrero as Jack Swagger's mother might have been the best line from anyone during the entire show, and Beeker helping Santino Marella beat Swagger was also a good bit.

That said, how can you have the Muppets at Raw without an appearance by Animal? Or Crazy Harry blowing something up?

Alberto Del Rio vs. Big Show.  Very good match, even if Show's "WMD" finisher looked more like a punch from my cat to her sister. Although I don't believe the WWE Champion should be cleanly pinned outside of a PPV, it did its job of setting up the segment where CM Punk extracts an agreement to a championship match at Survivor Series via the "Anaconda Vice."

The Rock.  On the one hand, it is always great to see The Rock on television. On the other hand...

The Stinky

The Rock's promo.  It may have been The Rock's weakest performance on the mic since the Rocky Maivia days. While it is true The Rock doesn't do this full-time anymore, this promo had none of the passion that made his long John Cena Facebook rant from this summer so entertaining. 

I think it would have been better to have The Rock turn Cena down this week, then have Miz and R-Truth change his mind by attacking him on the "G.I. Joe" set (with the exclusive video on the WWE's website to give Smackdown a lift on Friday).

My guess is that The Rock will redeem himself when he returns to Raw in a few weeks, but this was not the strong opening for the show that it should have been.

Using WWE.com "over the weekend" to change match stipulations. There is nothing wrong with driving traffic to your website. But why didn't Punk hit the ring and go on a rant only to be interrupted by John Laryngitis (Santino's name for the interim GM was the second best line of the night), who would tell Punk he gets his title shot if he wins his match "which starts right now" against Mark Henry? 

The "As I announced over the weekend at WWE.com" explanation was almost as lame as...

The Jim Ross segment that wasn't. The alleged story—if you believe the dirt sites—is that the Ross/Michael Cole challenge was postponed due to time constraints. If this is true, it is inexcusable, as Atlanta was the perfect setting for JR to smack Cole around. The segment may still be okay when it happens, but the one-week delay steals its thunder.

Champions who lose on TV.  How many times have U.S. Champion Dolph Ziggler and Tag Team Champs Kofi and Bourne lost in "non-title" matches lately? Not as much as Daniel Bryan perhaps, but they lost again Monday night: Ziggler to Zack Ryder and Air Boom to Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes. 

After Raw, we learned that Bourne had just received a 30-day suspension for a Wellness Policy violation. If so, why weren't the tag team titles taken away? Also, why isn't Ziggler (and other heels, for that matter) allowed to build solid heel heat with the fans by getting cheap wins instead of losing all the time to Ryder? 

Yet another Divas battle royal.  Three words: Fast. Forward. Button.

The end of the Cena/Miz match.  What was a pretty good main event turned sour when R-Truth, dressed as the "Scream" guy for Halloween, interfered. Rather than having Cena knock Truth on his butt beyond the guardrail, Truth could have jumped it. Cole and Lawler could have then sold it as a fan jumping Cena, and another beat down of Cena to build heat to Survivor Series could have commenced. 

It would have been even better had The Rock turned Cena down to start the show. "What will Cena do to handle Miz and Truth now that The Rock has refused to be his partner?!"

Some will say Raw was doomed to be mediocre, sacrificed to the altar of the Muppet movie, but it didn't have to be that way. The company has time to recover, but if they want fans to buy Survivor Series, the WWE needs to focus on producing great TV, and not simply count on the pop from The Rock showing up.