BRM Reviews the 3/4/2013 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

YAY! THE UNDERTAKER!

WAIT! Where the hell did Taker go? Did he really just walk out for the sole purpose of walking back again? WHAT THE F*CK?!

CM PUNK PROMO- I absolutely hate the fact that Punk is acting like a standard delusional heel! He is acting just like every other heel, and has thus ceased to feel special. Punk is going after Taker… but I don’t think anyone thinks Punk has a chance in hell of beating Taker.

OPENING SEGMENT- bad. I normally like segments like this, but this one felt SOOOO scripted. One guy said his thing, then we he was finished, the next guy came out and said his thing a so on and so forth. If they had had these guys interrupt each other, rather than wait for the other guy to finish, it would have worked a lot better. Their arguments for why they think they can beat Taker don’t matter (aside from the guy who ultimately wins, but we’ll have all the time between tonight and Mania to hear that guy’s arguments).

RYBACK vs. ANTONIO CESARO- 5/10
Why the hell would you use Cesaro here? This is his fifth straight loss on Raw! He is the US Champion! That shouldn’t happen! Further infuriating me is the fact that one of those five previous losses… WAS TO RYBACK! The result of that match didn’t matter at all (if it did, this would be a title match), so why should we think the result of this match will matter either? Ryback doesn’t gain anything from beating a guy that he just beat a month ago and all this does is hurt Cesaro so why would you put Cesaro in this spot?

RYBACK AND MARK HENRY HAVE A STAREDOWN- A great segment, but now I am even more pissed off about the Cesaro thing! If the whole point of this match was to create an excuse for the staredown between Ryback and Henry, then the segment works no matter who Ryback beats! So why would you make one of your champions look weak? You could have just had Ryback squash a jobber, save yourself six minutes of TV time to use for something else, and gotten the same result!
GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

MARK HENRY vs. ZACK RYDER- decent squash.

DOLPH ZIGGLER (w/AJ Lee & Big E. Langston) vs. THE MIZ (w/Ric Flair)- 6/10
Miz says that Flair is his mentor. If you are going to do an angle where one guy is mentoring another, it’s a good idea to have them on screen together MORE THAN ONCE!
Big E. no-selling Flair’s offense was just freakin’ awesome! The match itself was decent.

POINT-COUNERPOINT WITH THE ROCK AND JOHN CENA- bad segment.
I will pop huge if Rocky responds to one of Cean’s points by saying “John you ignorant slut.”
Cena was good, Rock’s delivery was good, but I hated the concept. Why should Rock want to face Cena again? He already beat Cena. Saying that Cena is the only one who has an equal drive to win with his own really pissed me off. There are a whole lot of other guys back there who work just as hard an have strong connections to the fans… most notably CM PUNK! Also, Rock kept flip-flopping in this segment. He said that he respect Cena’s drive… then he would crap on him and say he was full of crap.
Cena quoting Tyson (“in order to be the greatest that ever lived, you have to beat everyone living”) bugs me for one simple reason: You know who else Cena hasn’t beaten and who would be a much more compelling match-up for Cena (and for himself): THE UNDERTAKER.

JACK SWAGGER (w/Zeb Coulter) vs. “HACKSAW” JIM DUGGAN (w/Dusty Rhodes & Sgt. Slaughter)- okay segment.

SWAGGER & DEL RIO BRAWL BACKSTAGE- eh.

TEAM HELL NO vs. THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS- DUD!
Last week on Raw, Team Hell No beat the Prime Time Players despite one of them being blindfolded and the other one having one arm tied behind his back. Why the hell should we think PTP have a snowball’s chance of winning when Hell No aren’t physically impaired?
What do you know? They didn’t.

HEATH SLATER & DREW MCINTYRE (w/Jinder Mahal) vs. TENSAI & BRODUS CLAY (w/the Funkadactyls & the Honkytonk Man)- DUD!
The two giant monsters need to use a roll-up to beat the biggest jobbers in the company. Said biggest jobbers manage to look even more pathetic than usual by losing in about nine seconds. Then Honkytonk Man hits Heath Slater with his guitar when he interrupts the post-match dancing. This was an obnoxious waste of time.

KOFI KINGSTON vs. FANDANGO- DUD! Fandango whines because he didn’t like the way Justin Roberts pronounced his name.

TRIPLE H PROMO- great

SHIELD PROMO- okay

WADE BARRETT vs. ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Ricardo Rodriguez)- 6.25/10

THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS vs. PRIMO & EPICO (w/Rosa Mendes)- 3.75/10
The match was short but the Outlaws looked good.

WINNER FACES THE UNDERTAKER AT WRESTLEMANIA XXIX: Sheamus vs. Randy Orton vs. The Big Show vs. CM Punk (w/Paul Heyman)- 7.25/10
I popped for Pun k interrupting Mae Young’s birthday. Also, the internet disagrees with WWE. It says that Mae’s birthday is next week.

Overall, not a good episode of Raw.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Lawler (after Miz cuts his promo to bring out Flair) “Is Flair really here?”
Well, he was confirmed for the show, so he damn well better be here. Furthermore, what incentive would Miz have to lie about this?

[Bob-O]

CM PUNK PROMO- I absolutely hate the fact that Punk is acting like a standard delusional heel! He is acting just like every other heel, and has thus ceased to feel special. Punk is going after Taker… but I don’t think anyone thinks Punk has a chance in hell of beating Taker.

I think this was more about setting up the Main Event than it was setting up 'Taker vs Punk. They knew it was impossible to top Punk vs Cena from last week (I don't think any of them expected it to be THAT good), and I think they were scrambling to come close with the 4-Way with the 'Streak Shot' on the line. Idiotic, I know, but like you said with the 'My Turn to Talk' promos, this thing stunk of last minute booking and squandered opportunity. But, now that it's out of the way, I have a feeling there's great things to come. I think Punk is a better promo than Hunter and Shawn, and even though there isn't as much history, It's CM Punk and he'll make us believe before it's over.