WWE: RAW Review for May 13th

With just a few days to go for the Extreme Rules PPV, the 1,042nd episode of Monday Night RAW kick-started with a dance off between Jericho and Fandango, which was heavily promoted since the previous week. Jerry Lawler was in the middle of the ring as he welcomed us to the dance off. Fandango came down first with Summer Rae (great choice regarding the valet). Chris Jericho made his way down next with Edyta, and both of them get 90 seconds to show the fans what they’re capable of. Fandango goes first, but asks the crowd to be silent. Merely after 5 seconds, Summer falls down and looks like she’s hurt. Fandango is upset, but nails Jericho from behind and goes on an assault. Afterwards, Summer gets up, implying it was planned all along. The segment ends with Fandango and Summer doing a little dance. This took 20 minutes, and was a very boring way to open the show. A dance off to open RAW is a pretty bad idea.

Ryback defeated Zack Ryder

Ryback comes out and wins a squash match against Ryder. Apparently, that makes him a much bigger threat than he already is. A promo could have done a better job.

PTP (O’Neil & Young) defeated Tons of Funk (Clay & Tensai)

PTP are the most entertaining tag team there is in the division, and they are used merely as fillers on filler shows. At least they were on this week’s RAW. They took on Tons of Funk and won the match. Finally something that was sensible on this show, and till this point, it had been a let-down.

Last week on Smackdown!, Ziggler suffered a concussion, and hence wasn’t medically cleared to perform. We got news from Teddy Long that the World title match would be scrapped at Extreme Rules, and instead of that, we would get ADR vs Jack Swagger in an “I Quit” match for the #1 contender spot. That was the most sensible thing to do, now that Ziggler wouldn’t be able to perform for a while.

Kofi Kingston defeated Damien Sandow

A basic match to feed Sandow to the United States champion, Kofi. The match only went for three minutes.

Mark Henry’s segment went up next. Josh Mathews was in the ring, and Henry tied a strap around Josh’s wrists and dragged him to touch all the four corners of the ring. Henry then invited Sheamus into the ring, and the Great White graciously took the offer and came down, only to get his own strap. They got into a strap whipping contest, which was won by Sheamus as he sent Henry to the floor. An okay segment which explained the rules of the match and furthered the rivalry between the two.

Randy Orton defeated Antonio Cesaro

A very short match that saw Orton picking up the win by delivering an RKO ‘out of nowhere’. Cesaro continues to lose, which is very disappointing.

The Miz defeated Heath Slater (With Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre)

A four minute match that was pretty pointless, and was also the longest match of the night thus far. WWE loves to do everything else except matches. Barrett’s promo was apparently up on the WWE App during the match. Who watches a promo during matches? WWE logic I suppose.

John Cena and Team Hell No defeated The Shield in an Elimination tag team match by DQ

The Shield managed to eliminate both the members of Team Hell No, but Cena came back to eliminate two members of The Shield, and while the third member was about to tap out, the other two blindsided Cena and assaulted him. The match went for 24 minutes, and this marks the first official loss for The Shield as a team. This was ludicrous booking, as Cena didn’t need to eliminate almost all the members of The Shield. A good 6–man tag match none the less.

Post match, they delivered the triple power bomb to Cena. With Cena laid out in the ring, Ryback came down and hit Cena’s injured foot with a chair. This would automatically imply that Cena retains the title this Sunday.

Jack Swagger (With Zeb Colter) defeated Big E Langston (With AJ) via count out

A decent match that saw both men ending up on the outside. The end came when Swagger side stepped a spear attempt by Big E, and Swagger made his way into the ring to answer the 10 count, thus winning via count out. Post match, ADR came down and took out both Big E and Jack Swagger, and was standing tall in the middle of the ring.

AJ Lee defeated Natalya

I was left with mixed emotions as Natalya was finally involved in a match, but she lost. Anyway, the finisher of AJ looked great, and the bout went for 4 minutes. Nothing great about the match though, just a filler on the card.

Backstage segment with Chris Jericho – Jericho looked serious, and said the time for dancing was over. At ER, he would show Fandango how to dance Jericho style.

Main segment time – Triple H waited inside the ring which was surrounded by a Steel cage. Triple H called out Lesnar, and it was answered by Heyman and Lesnar. Triple H taunted Lesnar to get into the ring, and Lesnar finally did so. Triple H finally got the upper hand and drove Lesnar out through the steel, and to the outside. The show ended with Triple H standing tall inside the ring as Lesnar and Heyman walked back on to the ramp.

Verdict

Another below average show, and it barely had about 40 minutes of in-ring action. WWE kept plugging in the WWE App, which was annoying. The RAW before the PPV usually drives the point home, but this time, it was very mediocre. Anyway, we will see how the PPV goes, and also the fall out on next week’s edition of Monday Night RAW.