Monday Night RAW recap: Long Live the King…Or Not
Opening Segment
Leading up to RAW, we were lead to believe that HHH was going to start off show, and address his status with the company. You would think I would be thrilled when that did not happen.
Unfortunately, we had to continue the CM Punk vs 62 year old commentator Jerry Lawler instead.
“I’m sorry that to get into the WWE Hall of Fame all it takes is to beat a bunch of no bodies from Memphis.”
(As stale and repetitive as King has gotten, Michael Cole has been no better. Every week he seems to flip between being a heel or face announcer. One minute he’ll play it straight, the next he’s going off on how Sheamus is the Great White Cheater. All I want is consistency…and for Lawler and Cole to both get fired.)
Ryback vs Jack Swagger
Swagger got in one or two offensive maneuvers but it was mostly the Ryback show. The catch-22 creative has with Ryback is that they want to get him over with the crowd (which he has to a degree) but they don’t want the crowd to chant “Goldberg” at him. They tried keeping him on Smackdown in order to edit out the Goldberg chants/pipe in the “feed more more” chants. This was effective but keeping him on Smackdown limits his opponents to local jobber and Jinder Mahal (some might argue they are one in the same).
Bringing him back to RAW has re-opened the crowds ability to chant on live television. At least his opponents are gradually starting to get more respective. However he still has yet to beat anyone of substance, unless you count Stan Stansky and Arthur Rosenberg….which I do. The win tonight gives Ryback 26 consecutive wins on television. Wake me up when he wrestles someone the WWE actually cares about like Randy Orton or Sheamus.
Layla’s got some new entrance music. The lyrics consist of “I’m insatiable, I can’t get enough, I need to find a boy.” Combine this with “Holla, holla, holla” and “Let’s light it up” (which would be better suited for X-Pac…ZING) and you have some of the worst music by artists not named Chad Kroeger. Who is in charge of assigning theme music to the wrestlers nowadays? It can’t still be Jim Johnston, the man who gave us the greatest theme song in history.
As for the match, Layla wins with a kick to the back of the head. I like Layla, but I would like to see her title run come to an end soon. She’s not really adding much to the show by going out and having three minute matches. It would be nice to see Natayla Neidhart get a run with the Butterfly belt.