Monday Night Raw Warm Up for February 20th, 2012

Chris Jericho should have a lot to say on Raw after leaving last night's Elimination Chamber match without being officially eliminated after a kick to the head by C.M. Punk.

Coming off last night’s Elimination Chamber par-per-view in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, tonight’s Raw from Minneapolis, Minnesota has a lot to make up for. Much of last night was taken up by Santino Marella parodying Rocky, John Laurinaitis blowing smoke, videos promoting John Cena versus The Rock at WrestleMania XXVIII, and backstage bits with Hornswaggle. The in ring content was rather limited to the two Chamber matches, a Divas title match, an unscheduled US Championship match and Kane versus Cena as the main event. With the biggest show of the year less than six weeks away it’s a shame that the bad outweighed the good at Elimination Chamber, particularly as the signature matches of the show were well put together.

PTB: Before we jump into where things stand after Elimination Chamber, we should spend a moment on some details from last week’s Raw in San Diego. It was the night of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Remember when USA would preempt Raw for that?

Brian: Those days were painful. I couldn’t understand why USA would preempt one of their top cable shows for that crap.

PTB: It’s hard to argue the “Elimination Chamber match debate” was much better. Isn’t this the kind of stuff C.M. Punk has promised time and again to change about WWE?

Brian: Yeah. I thought the same thing. The cherry on top was when he referred to the crowd as the WWE Universe.

PTB: Despite some fleeting moments of entertainment, it looked like everyone involved was in pain. It’s was the last show before a pay-per-view and that did nothing to entice me to buy Elimination Chamber.

Brian: It’s also a lousy way to start the show. If I’m a casual fan, I’m changing the channel as soon as I see 6 podiums in the ring.

PTB: There were some matches spotlighting the Raw Chamber match participants last week and Chris Jericho versus Kofi Kingston was probably the best. Kofi was a lot of fun to watch in the Chamber as well, but it was more fun to watch Jericho eliminate him with the real deal Walls of Jericho.

Brian: Jericho still has it!!!

PTB: R-Truth had a very short showing last night going out in less than five minutes, but his using Dolph Ziggler’s choice to do a few sit ups to hit a small package for the win was great last Monday. I think they missed an opportunity by not having him and Miz in the ring at the same time at any point. Miz could have easily come in third instead of Ziggler.

Brian: Having Truth go over Ziggler gives him some validity. Looking at the Elimination Chamber lineup on paper, I’d have picked Truth to be eliminated first, but having him roll up Ziggler last week had me second guessing.

PTB: Punk’s singles match with the Miz last time was actually a little sloppy, I was surprised to see them work the end of the Chamber match.

Brian: Punk and Miz had zero chemistry last week. I’m not sure if that has anything to do with the fact that Punk has publicly blasted him in the past.

PTB: The big news coming out of the the Raw Chamber match (other than Punk’s working the entire match and winning to retain the title) is that Jericho was never really eliminated. Punk kicked him out of the chamber and he collided with a camera man. I fully expect Jericho to attack that crew member tonight on Raw as they set up the WrestleMania match between Punk and Jericho.

PTB: The Divas Championship match between Beth Phoenix and Tamina Snuka was better than what we see on Raw from week to week with Tamina hitting a top rope splash. Beth won the match, and the announcers credited her reviewing Rowdy Roddy Piper’s feud with Tamina’s father, Jimmy Snuka, for inspiration. No coconuts were used in the win, but what do you think of Snuka being added to Tamina’s name?

Brian: I think every 2nd generation wrestler should use the surname that made their parent famous (hint hint, Husky Harris and Michael McGuillicuty).

PTB: I’m more than ready for the John Cena / Kane “Embrace the Hate” feud to end and it looks like it may have last night. Cena won the second ever Ambulance Match, but with lengthy videos for the Rock and Cena on every show I can’t help but think things are about to get worse. Last Monday it felt like they kept coming back to that story all night. Part of me just wants to see Cena and Eve go full evil.

Brian: The whole situation has gotten old real quick. I’m not sure why they did the Cena/Eve thing if there were no plans to turn him. And what are they doing with Ryder? Next week Kane’s going to rip his arm off.

As far as The Rock, the fact that hehas been all over TV doing promotion for movies, but can’t take a day out of his schedule to show up for a WWE event has me fuming.

PTB: It looks like there’s going to be a power struggle between Laurinaits and Teddy Long to see who will become the permanent General Manager of both Raw and Smackdown. I don’t mind an angle like that but it doesn’t need to be pushed on a pay-pre-view with anything other than a match That complaint aside, it was good to see Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, and the returning Alberto Del Rio and Christian throw their support behind Laurinaits as they were the guys supporting him last Summer. They also have good reason to resent Teddy Long.

Laurinaitis was credited with bringing Shawn Michaels to Raw last week. I genuinely enjoyed Michaels trying to talk Triple H into the match with Undertaker at WrestleMania, but things started meandering until Michaels asked if Triple H got married and became “one of them.”

Brian: That was a great moment.

PTB: There was some good intensity and some worked shoot stuff that was interesting, but ultimately I want them to pick someone else to face the Undertaker at WrestleMania.

Brian: Agreed. I’m not looking forward to this match at all.

PTB: What was with the haircut and the immortality bit in the Undertaker’s latest video?

Brian: There were pictures going around the Internet with a bald UT. I think he’s been wearing a wig and they were trying to find a way to get rid of it before he has to wrestle.

PTB: Wrapping things up, the Smackdown Chamber match was a real mixed bag. The highlight was probably Santino Marella replacing the injured Randy Orton, but the low point was the inclusion of Khali. Thankfully he was gone in a hurry. Seeing NXT season one guys, Wade Barrett and Daniel Bryan, battle in a high profile match and Cody Rhodes was impressive.

The real news for me here is The Big Show. He dominated for a while and took some real bumps before being taken out by Barrett and Cody Rhodes. He also had one of the greatest Elimination Chamber moments ever breaking into the top of Bryan’s pod and demolishing him. I’m still thinking he’ll have an epic match and WrestleMania this year and be done, but it’s not likely to be against Bryan for the World Championship as Sheamus showed up after the match to beat down Bryan. It looks like that’s his pick for a title match after winning the Rumble, but we’re likely to hear more tonight on Raw.

Below is a complete set of results from last night’s WWE Elimination Chamber 2012. All photos courtesy of WWE.com.

• World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan won the SmackDown Elimination Chamber Match
• WWE Champion CM Punk won the Raw Elimination Chamber Match
• John Cena defeated Kane in an Ambulance Match
• United States Champion Jack Swagger defeated Justin Gabriel
• Divas Champion Beth Phoenix defeated Tamina Snuka

Read more about World Wrestling Entertainment on MyLatestDistraction.

Keep up with all of our weekly Monday Night Raw Warm Ups:
February 13th, 2012 edition / February 27th, 2012 edition