I'll start with the biggest news coming out of tonight's Monday Night RAW. The Rock is back in the WWE and will be the guest host for Wrestlemania 27! The Rock gave an awesome promo at the end of the night, but the whole scenario raised more questions than it answered.
For one, why did a pair of feet clearly belonging to a woman step out of the limo when the announce booth was telling us that the Guest Host had arrived? This is contradictory to the Rock's status as guest host. Was this short segment a simple misdirection or was it the start of another storyline? Furthermore, the Rock spent some time during his promo seemingly trying to start a war of words with John Cena. Is the Rock going to host Wrestlemania or is he going to wrestle? I know the Rock has gone on record as saying he did not intend to ever wrestle another match again, but maybe there's a more complicated story beginning. Perhaps those feet do belong to the real Guest Host of Wrestlemania 27 and the Rock will end up stepping between the rope for one more dance. Unlikely, I know, but I can dream.
Moving on, this was also a great episode of RAW for fans of actual wrestling. Cena and CM Punk started off the night in a solid bout, seeing CM Punk pick up the win after some assistance from a Nexus-branded arm under the ring. I can only assume that said Nexus member exited from under the ring during a commercial break since we saw Mason, McGillicutty, and Ortunga all later on in the night. Or maybe we have a new mystery member of Nexus! Okay, so it's probably just a plot hole. Whatever.
Next we were treated to an extended segment featuring Edge, Del Rio, Vickie Guerrero, and Dolph Ziggler. I understand that we are building to WM27 right now, but spending an extended amount of time furthering a feud between two Smackdown superstars, the Smackdown champion, and the Smackdown GM seems out of place on RAW. If WWE really feels the need to give their Smackdown feuds more exposure due to poor ratings maybe they need to reassess the content of Smackdown. Back to the segment; Vickie is just a heat machine! The crowd hates her so much, it is unbelievable. The downside is that none of her heat seems to be affecting the audience's view of Dolph Ziggler. It seems like the crowd is completely indifferent to Dolph -he might as well be a sack of potatoes. Dolph is a hard worker and he does play a good, if somewhat generic heel. In order to grow his character and avoid stagnation, Dolph is going to need to step out of Vickie's shadow and develop his own heat. As for the angle developed on RAW, I'm hoping that this Friday sees the return of Teddy Long, not only to clear Edge's name but to allow Edge to keep his championship. I'd prefer this to happen sooner rather than later, rather than forcing Dolph as champion for a few weeks first.
Natalya and Eve put on a good match tonight but the finish was unfortunate. I currently am not invested in Eve as a champion because her win seems like a fluke. I realize that her win over Natalya tonight was supposed to cement her status as a non-fluke champ, but the botched finish only served to reinforce the feeling for me. Still, good wrestling overall!
Sheamus beating up Mark Henry served no real purpose tonight. Sure, he was extracting some revenge from last week, but I don't anticipate this developing into a program between them. Seemed more like a one-off and the time might have been better allocated to something else. Of course, Sheamus isn't really involved in another feud right now, so maybe this will develop into an ongoing program for him. I would prefer not. As long as we're talking about Sheamus, we might as well skip ahead to talk about his match with Orton which was solid. Both of these guys sell! Sheamus has sort of languished since his stint as champion, but I think he's good enough to put back in the main event. Michael Cole made the comparison between the Miz and Triple H tonight, but by my money Sheamus is the next King of Kings!
Daniel Bryan came off great in his match with the Miz, despite taking the job. Bryan dominated with impressive offense for almost the entire match, reminding me why this guy is so damn impressive. I was surprised to see the Miz go over in a clean finish, but I suppose it is time that they started trying to build him as a credible champion. The Miz has done well as champion but we're quickly coming up on Judgement Day. He's had the time to establish himself as champion and the next few weeks are going to determine if Miz is going to the next level or if he is going to step back down to the midcard for WM27. Either way, the Miz has established himself as a reliable worker and has solid personality. I personally anticipate that we'll see the Miz in the main event for some time to come.
The Nexus vs Ron Truth & John Morrison matchup was notable for one reason: Morrison spontaneously grew a personality! Sure, that personality was just "angry man," but any sort of character development is a step in the right direction. John Morrison is an incredible talent, with both the moves and the looks of a true WWE superstar. He just needs to bring a little more life to his character, which currently feels dimensionless. I have confidence that Morrison can deliver and I was finally feeling a pulse from him tonight!
And that pretty much sums up the latest story line developments on RAW this week. I don't know if we'll be seeing the Rock on a weekly basis, but I'm looking more forward to the Road to Wrestlemania than I have in years now. The quality of WWE programming is definitely on an upswing!
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