WWE Raw 11/21: Champion vs. Champion, a Breakup and 2 Stars Set to Return

Monday Night Raw opened with new WWE Champion CM Punk. He told a story of how he wanted to be a professional wrestler—not a sports entertainer—when he grew up.

The game of hot potato over the title is over because it’s staying with CM Punk. He is the new face of the WWE and will make the WWE Championship interesting again.

He wants to bring an era of danger into Raw and wants to make John Laurinaitis known as the former Raw general manager. That brought out the interim Raw general manager for his usual monotonous, boring promo.

Punk called him a stooge and Bill Lumbergh, minus the humor. Laurinaitis said he had a wild side and decided to put Alberto Del Rio vs. CM Punk for the title next week. Punk made fun his “wild side,” so he made a champion vs. champion match where Punk takes on Dolph Ziggler.

Punk wanted Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder, but Laurinaitis wasn’t going to give it to us.

Punk stated that he’d beat Ziggler and Del Rio next week, and then someday someone will beat some sense into Laurinaitis.

CM Punk was great, as usual. That man gets better and better on the mic each week. John Laurinaitis, on the other hand, continues to bore me. I can’t wait until he’s no longer the general manager.

When he is gone, I think he’d make a great manager for Alberto Del Rio. With their combined boring personalities they can create something interesting.

I am intrigued, though, by Laurinaitis texting someone at the end of each segment he’s in. I’m quite interested to find out who he’s been texting each and every week.

Zack Ryder vs. Alberto Del Rio

Del Rio won the opening match with his cross armbreaker.

Before the match, Ryder interrupted Ricardo Rodriguez announcing Del Rio. Instead, he led the crowd in a “woo woo woo, you know it!”

The match was too short and that took away from it I think. Ryder is extremely talented and despite Del Rio’s boring persona, he’s talented inside the ring.

If given a little more time, these two could have had a good match.

Either way, Zack Ryder faced a main event star. Is that a sign of things to come? I sure hope so.

Match Rating: 2/5

Sheamus vs. Jack Swagger

Sheamus won the match after a kick to the face.

Despite being kind of short, this was a good match. Sheamus and Swagger took the time they were given and delivered a good, back-and-forth match.

I was never a huge fan of Swagger, but the man knows his way around the ring. I love Sheamus’ character and his ground-and-pound style.

Whenever the Mark Henry/Big Show feud is over, I hope to see Sheamus getting back into the title picture.

Match Rating: 3/5

Kevin Nash then made his way to the ring. No, wait, he stopped at the top of the ramp.

He talked of some of his Madison Square Garden moments and how it should have been Rock/Cena vs. Triple H/Nash at Survivor Series.

He said out of all the members of the Kliq, he was the real survivor.

Then he left. That’s it? Well, that was pointless.

Kevin Nash continues to bore the fans with his pointless promos. He brings a lot of emotion to what he says, but it’s got to be hard for young fans to understand and care about what he’s saying.

I mean, they don’t have a clue who Bob Backlund or the Kliq is.

Just get in the ring already, Nash. That way you can blow out your knee again and just go away.

Cody Rhodes was in the ring after the commercial break and he talked about how taking the mask off brought out a new Cody Rhodes, an uninhibited and unbeatable Cody Rhodes.

That brought out Santino Marella for the next match.

Cody Rhodes vs. Santino Marella

Rhodes won the match with Crossroads.

The match was short and pointless. Santino has become a glorified jobber. It’s a shame because he really is a good wrestler.

I’m loving Cody Rhodes’ character. He’s great in the ring and his mic work is a lot better than it was before winning the Intercontinental Championship.

The title gave him the chance to shine, and he’s doing just that.

The point of this match was discovered when Rhodes approached Booker T. For weeks, Booker hasn’t been singing Rhodes’ praises like Michael Cole, so he confronted Booker about it.

It resulted in Cody throwing water at the former five-time WCW World Champion.

I expect to see that materialize into Cody Rhodes vs. Booker T for the title at the TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs pay-per-view.

Match Rating: 1/5

Backstage, Dolph Ziggler said he was the face of the WWE, not CM Punk. Sorry, Dolph, but being United States Champion doesn’t make you the face of anything.

Hopefully you will be sometime next year, though, when you finally have a World Championship for more than a day.

CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler

CM Punk won the match with the GTS.

This was a great match from beginning to end. Throughout the match we got some nice back-and-forth action and overall good wrestling.

CM Punk was great, like he usually is, and Dolph Ziggler proved that he can hang with a main event star. I think it’s only a matter of time before Ziggler is in the main event scene on Raw.

In fact, I’m throwing out a prediction right now. At January’s Royal Rumble, expect to see Dolph Ziggler win it.

Then, hoping that CM Punk is champion come WrestleMania 28, we’ll get a WWE Championship match that won’t disappoint like John Cena/Miz.

Match Rating: 5/5

We were then treated to a video hyping the return of Kane.

The video was quite creepy and brought back memories of when Kane was really a monster.

The ending saw a flaming mask on the ground. Is Kane returning with his mask?

The Big Show then headed to the ring, but like Kevin Nash, he stopped at the top of the ramp.

He said that he proved that he was tougher and stronger than Mark Henry. Henry may have left the champion, but he left on a stretcher.

When he comes back, Show will be waiting for him.

That was it.

I like that Big Show is back in the main event, but this feud is lasting too long, in my opinion.

Big Show can only fail so many times to capture the title before he turns into the new Christian.

What I mean by that is the fact that Christian kept failing to win the title and kept getting title shots only to keep on failing.

Backstage, Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox were playing the new WWE ’12 game. The Divas of Doom approached them and said that video game characters don’t cry like Kelly and Alicia do.

Then the segment ended.

So WWE saw it as a good idea to further the Diva's feud by promoting the new game. Yeah, it was kind of a waste of time.

Wade Barrett vs. Kofi Kingston

During the match, Randy Orton came out but that didn’t stop Wade Barrett from picking up the win with Wasteland.

Post-match, Barrett bragged about his victory to Orton only to see the Viper tease a strike and cause Barrett to frightfully jump back.

This was a good, back-and-forth match. Barrett is definitely looking like he’s in for the push WWE dropped the ball on last year. He’s good in the ring and can get by on the mic.

I think we’ll be seeing Wade Barrett as World Heavyweight Champion sometime next year.

It’s a shame that Kofi Kingston has turned into a jobber as of late. It seems like he’s being punished for Evan Bourne’s suspension.

Kingston is one of WWE’s better performers, and while I don’t see him in the main event, he makes for a solid mid-card wrestler. He shouldn’t be losing week in and week out just because his partner is gone.

Match Rating: 4/5

Before this match, WWE gave us one of their ridiculous Twitter updates, but there was something different about it.

It turned into a link and if you go to it, you get this video.

It’s very interesting and kind of creepy. Does it point to the return of The Undertaker? Chris Jericho? More hype for Kane? Or is it someone else entirely.

Let the speculation begin as January 2, 2012 approaches.

Wait a minute, where’s Brodus Clay? Wasn’t he supposed to debut last night? Well, he was supposed to debut for the past three weeks. By the time he does show up, the fans aren’t going to care.

Speaking of debuts, wasn’t there supposed to be a guest host last night? Yeah, the extremely unfunny Jonah Hill was supposed to be there.

Thank you, WWE, for cutting him from the show. Hill is not funny at all and I think may be a shape shifter.

I mean, how can one person go from fat to skinny so many times and not be sick?

Then it was time for John Cena to come out and complain about what happened with the Rock at Survivor Series. To my surprise, he didn’t do that.

He brought up various moments from the PPV, including Zack Ryder, CM Punk and he and Rock co-existing to defeat the Awesome Truth.

He mentioned the Rock Bottom he received in passing, then went to how the Rock still has “it.”

That brought out Awesome Truth, as they both tried to put down Cena for the fact that no one wanted to see him in the ring at Survivor Series.

Cena then drove quite the wedge between the team, saying that Miz thought that R-Truth was a nut job and R-Truth thought Miz was a D-list star who was on a crappy reality show.

Cena left and Awesome Truth began to argue. Miz ultimately said he was the better of the two and pushed Truth.

Truth then decked Miz, knocking him to the ground.

The segment ended when Miz convinced Truth to get Cena but gave him a Skull Crushing Finale on the ramp instead.

For the first time in a while I actually enjoyed a John Cena promo. He was short and to the point with everything and didn’t drag it out like he usually does.

While I’m disappointed at the breakup of the Awesome Truth, I like the way it was done.

Miz is a great heel and I think R-Truth can pull off being the crazy good guy.

It should be interesting to see how this all plays out once things get rolling.

Overall, this was a solid episode of Monday Night Raw. We got to see some good matches and some of the in-ring promos were enjoyable to watch.

This was the first episode of Raw I have truly enjoyed in a long time. I’m actually excited for next week!

Show Rating: 4/5