Monday Night Raw Warm Up for January 9th, 2012

Posted by ptb under *mixed, Television |

Chris Jericho made a big return to WWE last week and got a lot of people talking by saying nothing.

This week’s Monday Night Raw from Corpus Christi, Texas, could be a wild one after the return of Chris Jericho last week in Memphis. That show had a lot of build up for the mysterious “return” of a Superstar after weeks of promotional videos. I don’t think anyone here came away disappointed with the revelation of Jericho, but his silence after hitting the ring choosing instead to continually play to the live crowd was the real surprise.

It was certainly odd that Jericho didn’t speak, but it was clearly the plan and honestly adds to the intrigue surrounding why he’s back. It was a surreal segment given how little was said by anyone as even the ringside commentators said very little and ended the segment questioning what they just saw. WWE is promoting that Jericho’s was simply speechless and overwhelmed by the response from fans. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to hurl his typical insults at a crowd that was clearly excited by his appearance, but it was clear this is part of some character Jericho is playing this time around. Some interesting discussion of just what Jericho is up to appeared on The Bleacher Report and UGO.com, but clearly saying nothing gave people a lot more to talk about than anything he could have said.

Jericho’s spot came late in the night and while I understand drawing it out, the show could have done a lot more to grab viewer’s attention at the outset. A recap of John Cena “rising above” the fans’ hate and his recent run-ins with Kane kicked things off last week and led directly into 10 minutes of Cena on the mic in the ring. I’ve enjoyed the recent direction with Cena, but it feels like it’s being forced down our throats since Kane returned and their feud has opened and closed the show on a lot of big nights including last week. The best thing about their feud is that we’re back to hearing Kane’s creepy dirgy organ-heavy music along with the mask and wig.

Also with less than 90 days until WrestleMania XXVIII, I have to wonder where the Rock is. His absence last week not only gave us more Kane and John Cena than necessary, but it denied viewers a night like this one:

A lot of time was also dedicated to the feud between former tag team partners the Miz and R-Truth. Their segment in the arena was good, and I think that would have been more than enough to move things forward but much of the time spent on them consisted of backstage stuff last week. With all of the recap we saw last week, I can’t help but wonder if it was done in an effort to educate new viewers they were expecting to tune in. I’m not sure it makes for the most exciting show.

There was some decent wrestling on a night that was clearly heavy on in-ring promos, video packages and returning Superstars. I particularly liked seeing a champion versus champion match between Daniel Bryan and Cody Rhodes, I just didn’t like waiting twenty minutes before seeing it as the first match of the night. These two worked a few matches at the end of the year on Smackdown and this was another solid (but quick!) showing from the two.

The match of the night was Dolph Ziggler versus C.M. Punk for the WWE Championship. This is a great main event for Raw even if it came at the midway mark rather than closing the show. These are the types of matches and feuds I want to see more of every week, even if they’re pushing the Ziggler’s “Show Off” gimmick a bit too hard and Vickie Guerrero could be removed from the equation at this point. Another win for Ziggler, albeit by count out so he’s not the champion, certainly adds to the feud between him and Punk, but more emphasis was placed on the growing feud between Punk and WWE executive John Laurinaitis. I don’t know that this is working for me at this point, but at least it’s a constant throughout Punk’s rise to prominence from last Summer.

Other points of interest from last week included Brian’s Bellas getting some prime air time. When they came out early in hour two I fully expected the return of Kharma who was speculated to be the character making their return. There is a mysterious “she” mentioned in those videos, but the safe money is on Stephanie McMahon or my personal pick, the WWE Championship herself. Of course, there may not be a she at all and the specific comments from the videos could be ignored entirely. After all, the world as we know didn’t exaclty come to an end last week.

A personal note to Wade Barrett, a 2012 devoid of Randy Orton does sound smashing. Unfortunately, it’s too good to be true. Santino doing three laps around the ring before every match is a little more realistic for us to look forward to. Also the “Winds of Change” name for your finisher is what has to change. I know I’m old, but this is the only thing I think of when I hear that term and you deserve better than that.

The closing six-man tag match featured a lot of guys that normally get decent air time including The Big Show, Zack Ryder, Mark Henry, Jack Swagger along with Cena and Kane. It was a neat twist to have Kane blow off the match as it gave some attention to the others, but the final moments were completely absurd as Cena and Ryder tried to avoid being dragged to “hell” beneath the ring. If there wasn’t already too much of them in the night, this put it over the top and I have higher hopes for tonight in Texas.