RAW Reaction: 11/07/11

Taped wrestling shows never really excite me. There’s something to be said for live television, no matter how the quality of the shows may fluctuate from week to week. While this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw from Liverpool, England was not especially intriguing, it was actually a pretty decent show with a few enjoyable moments. Let’s reflect...

The first order of business I’d like to address would be the focus of the product going into Survivor Series. Now, Alberto Del Rio is the WWE Champion, but you already knew that. Or did you? It’s pretty easy to forget these days, seeing as how he’s been working mid-card TV matches for the past few weeks. Should the top guy not be protected? He should be, but unfortunately, Del Rio is not the top guy. He’s got a shiny toy belt that says he’s the top guy, but he is far from the focus of this company, let alone the focus of this show. Much of this has to do with the fact that he’s simply not ready. While his in-ring work is very solid, his material is stale and his positioning in terms of importance is nowhere near where it needs to be. CM Punk took it upon himself to point out some of Berto’s flaws this week, such as his one dimensional, fast-forward-the-DVR promos. The bottom line here is that Punk should be taking the title at Survivor Series, just for the sake of actually having an incentive to care about the title picture. I’m not an advocate for playing hot potato with the main title, but the paper champion needs to go, pronto.

The rest of the reason why the WWE Champion is not the main focus of this show has to do with the fact that the PPV they’re building to will feature The Rock and John Cena teaming up against The Miz and R-Truth, and most likely Triple H vs. Kevin Nash. I don’t even need to explain why The Rock is the most important part of Survivor Series succeeding, but I’d really like someone to explain to me why Kevin Nash is even on my TV at this juncture. I’m not against Nash involvement in an angle, but the angle he came back for and the angle he’s involved with now have almost nothing to do with each other. I don’t think there’s any interest for a Hunter/Nash bout, and that’s all there is to it. Are we leading to a “reunion” of some sort? Whatever the case may be, I’d prefer that we didn’t get a Nash shoot every week...

Dear Big Kev,

Punk does it better.

Sincerely,

Everyone.

(Although his “I should have buried Hunter in 1995” tirade was quite amusing...”)

I did mention that there were some positives to this show, and they came in the form of Zack Ryder being booked well. Not only was he booked for the main event again, he actually made it to the ring this week! He was quite over with the Liverpool crowd, and definitely got the rub here just due to the Cena association. I suppose the idea for this main event was for Miz and Truth to get their heat back after Cena single-handedly wafflestomped them to close last week’s show. Well, I guess they accomplished that in theory, but the only interest I actually have for this match at the PPV is the fact that The Rock is involved. I mean, it’s The Rock. I bought my ticket to the event almost entirely based on his presence. I think the show will succeed in terms of buyrates based on that as well, but that’s not to say that the main event couldn’t do with some spicing up.

All in all, a decent Raw before the go-home show next week. And you know what that means...the long awaited television return of BRODUS CLAY! YES!!! Oh, and I think The Rock’s gonna be there as well. Radical.

Chris Maffei
@cmstrike

Catch Chris Maffei and Nick Malone on Over The Ropes every Thursday night from 7-9PM, right here on WCWPSports.org.