WWE Raw 26/12/2011 Review

The final Raw of 2011 is in the books. Here is a brief review of all the action of WWE Monday Night Raw that took place at WWE Champion CM Punk‘s hometown of Chicago on 26/12/2011.

Hometown boy CM Punk’s theme was played but to everyone’s surprise Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, WWE, Mr. John Laurinaitis came out with a CM Punk T-shirt and mimicked CM Punk’s entrance. The real CM Punk came out next to the most thunderous ovation of the night. Both men had an argument about Mr. Laurinaitis’ unpredictability. Later, a Gauntlet match was made by Mr. Laurinaitis but Punk wanted more. Punk wanted to wrestle Laurinaitis and eventually got it as the fourth in line of the Gauntlet match. Punk’s opponents were later on revealed as Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler and Mark Henry, in that order.

A fun segment to kick off Raw. I loved the part when CM Punk accused John Laurinaitis for using his theme to get a reaction. The crowd cheered for Punk and booed John to the core. At the end of this segment, the sixth video of the It begins promo which emphasized on ‘End Begins’ was aired. Another slide showing ‘Next Monday’ was also a part of the video. I simply can’t wait until next Monday to find out who is going to return on Raw next week.

Match 1: Cody Rhodes Vs Booker T

Singles Match

The 5 time WCW champion Booker T faced the reigning Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes in a rematch of their match at TLC which Booker lost. Though this match was not for the IC title, it was still interesting to check out whether Booker gets his revenge on Cody or not. Initially the match was fast paced but lost steam midway. Cody used a few new submission moves, but in the end, it was Booker T who won the match after hitting the scissor kick. It was nice to see Booker T in action on Raw after several years. This win might further his storyline with Cody into a match at Royal Rumble.

Winner: Booker T

Match Rating: 8/10

Match 2: Eve Torres and Zack Ryder Vs Tyson Kidd and Natalya

Mixed Tag Team Match

After a long time, we had a mixed tag team match on Raw and we saw Tyson Kidd back in action. Fast paced match with a lot of back and forth action. But it ended very soon with Zack Ryder hitting the Rough Ryder on Kidd. After the match, a girlfriend angle between Ziggler and Eve was teased. With the US title in his hold, Ryder should be given some good feuds for the title. Though this match was good, it wasn’t a great way to showcase Ryder as a champion.

Winners: Zack Ryder and Eve Torres

Match Rating: 7/10

Match 3: John Cena Vs The Miz

John Cena came out and cut a good promo about Chicago and the attacks on him by Kane. He invited Kane to the ring but The Miz came and said that he wanted to lay the doubts of his Wrestlemania victory over Cena to rest once and for all by defeating Cena again. Both men got ready for the match but it never got underway. The Miz backed off and went out of the ring and lost the match via count-out. R-Truth returned and attack The Miz. R-Truth stated that he was going to do the same thing to The Miz in the weeks to come. The Miz played out his character brilliantly throughout this segment. I liked the way he backed off in the match in a typical heel fashion and the way he emphasized that he beat Cena at Wrestlemania and he doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody. While all of this was happening, John Cena had nothing to do and he was simply ignored, which is baffling. I thought that Kane would come out at this point, but it didn’t happen.

Winner: John Cena (By count-out)

Match Rating: 1/10

Match 4: Big Show Vs David Otunga

Singles Match with Big Show having one arm tied to his back

John Laurinaitis made this match for his assistant David Otunga who felt offended by Big Show’s punch to his face during last week’s Smackdown. The match started with Otunga attacking Big Show but after a while, interruptions by Mark Henry and Daniel Bryan took the fizz out this match. It was ruled in favor of Big Show because of Otunga’s disqualification due to Mark Henry’s interruption. It was good to Smackdown title picture playing out on Raw but the match should’ve atleast been completed before interruptions by Henry and Bryan.

Winner: Big Show (By Disqualification)

Match Rating: 2/10

Then we a small segment featuring Alberto Del Rio. He talked about his groin being torn and how he will come back stronger to win the WWE Championship again. It seems likely that he will be out for a month atleast.

Match 5: CM Punk Vs Jack Swagger/Dolph Ziggler/Mark Henry

Gauntlet Match

Jack Swagger was first in line for Punk. The match started off slowly and picked up pace eventually. Within a span of 5 minutes, Punk beat Swagger which was hugely disappointing. It should have been made more longer and there is no point in giving Punk the easy win.

Dolph Ziggler came out and during this match Jack Swagger aided him but constantly attacking Punk’s legs. Then, John Laurinaitis came out and ordered Jack and Vickie to go backstage. While all this was happening, the referee ignored a pin by Punk and CM Punk got distracted to eventually get pinned by Dolph Ziggler. By virtue of this victory, Dolph Ziggler gets a WWE Championship match, next week.

While this match may have been fruitful for Dolph Ziggler, it also served another purpose by furthering the animosity between CM Punk and John Laurinaitis.

Winner: Dolph Ziggler

Match Rating: 7/10

Kane answers:

Kane came out and started to talk about his attack on John Cena. He says that he was against John Cena’s policy of Rise Above Hate. John Cena came out and Kane addressed Cena on the reason for his attack. He said that hate motivates everyone and goes on to say that Cena feels the hate. He continued by saying that Cena hates too, and will become free when he lets that out. The crowd chants ‘Let’s go Cena, Cena Sucks’ to end the show. The final segment with Kane was good. This could be the perfect foil for Cena to turn heel. I liked how Kane sounded intelligent and not stupid, even though he is viewed as just a monster. The end was perfect, without any real fighting between the two. It kept the viewers intrigued on what happen in future.

Overall Raw was good and was kept lively by an active crowd. With a big name to return next week, WWE did a good job to keep the viewers interested in the Kane-Cena saga, which might see some drastic twists and turn in the coming weeks.

Raw Rating: 7/10