Old School Raw

So we had old school Raw this week. It looked the part. No padding on the barriers. No ramp on the entrance aisle. The King had a nice Jacket on. Then from what I can remember that was about it as far as Old School goes.

Undertaker made an appearence before tthe start of the show, then buggered off again. Pretty pointless if you ask me.

The show starts with a CM Punk promo challanging The Undertaker at WM29. Sheamus, Big Show and Randy Orton all come to the ring to challange 'Taker also. vickie Gurerro comes out and makes a fatal 4 way and the winner faces Undertaker at WM29. CM Punk wins.

John Cena and The Rock cut a promo in the ring about their match at WM29. I must admit The Rock was quite good during this segment. it's probably the best one Cena and Rock have done together. No comedy shte from The Rock. I'm looking forward to see how this develops. i just hope The Rock is there every week until mania.

They teased a potential match up between Ryback and Mark Henry. Now most people will think this will be poor but for some reason i'm intregued how this one will go. i know we've seen two power houses go at it before but i think these two could work together. Destroying opponents trying to one up each other leading to a match at WM.

HHH challanges Brock lesnar for a match at WM. This should be a no holds barred match (if Lesnar accepts of course). I'd assume Vince and Heyman will be in respective corners.

We seen a video package from The Shield regarding what happened on Smackdown but apart from that they werent involved. I did read somewhere that the Shield attacked the Big Show when Raw went off the air. Its looking like Big Show will be involved with the shield at WM - but the list who they could face is getting a b big. We have Big Show, Orton, Sheamus, Jericho, Ryback etc. Who ever faces them, The Shield need to win.

So all in all, an average Raw. If it hadn't been labelled Old School i think it would been a great Raw. It just took the shine of the show itself.

it was a pile of turd. Barely advanced any of the storylines and seemed like a bunch of random matches. No purpose to the show like previous weeks, where everyone fighting was driven by their storyline.

Vince should have done some commentary.

Three man band got mic time, Zeb Colter did not...

agree i thought it was a awful episode. I dont think Sheamus will be involved i think he will be going against Barrett or they have done 3 weeks of Sheamus taking the piss out of him for no reason. Jericho is the likely replacement.

Agree, it was a terrible Raw but most of these type of shows are. It's ok doing one of these shows later on in the year but not 4 weeks before the biggest show of year.

There were bits that I thought were good:

Rock & Cena promo was better than everything they did last year. When Cena plays it straight, he does cut a hell of a promo. Problem is when he starts shouting for no reason, making awful jokes that just die on their arse. They only ropey thing he did was the impression of Tyson, everything else was top notch.

Rock's Lance Armstrong putdown was one of the greatest I've heard. Loved it.

It's good that the top three matches are now set up, plus the WHC. Means the likes of Barrett, Sheamus and co can finally start to slot into place.

The bad:

Ric Flair. What the fuck was he doing?

Dolph Ziggler. What the fuck are they doing to him? From being the next WHC in waiting, to jobbing to Miz, cleanly, by submission. Well done WWE, you've killed Dolph.

New Age Outlaws winning. Yes, they're all about the nostalgia pop. I get that. But beating probably the most talented actual tag team WWE has? Shocking.

Team Hell No. From weeks of bickering to possibly splitting up, to now being best buddies again, to Daniel Bryan now being nothing more than a comedy character. Mania last year, he was the most popular guy in the company. Now he's a joke.

Prime Time Players: have now gone from potentially a damned good team, to not being able to beat a blindfolded / one handed combo two weeks running, then jobbed clean again as they're supposed to be mipressing Ted Dibiase. Pointless.

I think wwe killed Dolph long before Raw to be fair. The Dolph Ziggler thread I started a few weeks ago states why.

The tag team division was beginning to look like something with PTP's, Uso's, Rhodes Scholars, Team Hell no, Sin cara and Rey etc. But things like what happpened on Raw just puts it back to nothing. I think the NXT tag champs are quite good (you's will be able to tell me more on those two). Potential is there, they just need air time, and a decent amount of it.

Agree Dolph's long gone AS A LEADING HEEL at any rate, I think WWE is in the process of trying to turn him face. He will come to realise his losing streak is as a result of AJ and Big E and ditches them. He turns face and starts to pick up wins but however by this time he is instructed that if he doesn't cash in by the time of the next PPV (MITB) he will be forced to cash in his MITB contract, which happens as a result. Ziggler wins the title in the first match of the ppv, he is then forced to face the opponent the champion was supposed to face and wins again, however the original champion gets their rematch and wins.

Ziggler then goes on a long feud with the champion but is unsuccessful, eventually will win the title back at the next WM.

If he is turning face, WWE are doing it in a really bad way. I've always hated the losing streak to make people a good guy thing, for me it kinda kills them from the start. It didn't work for MVP, when you see the same guy losing for months on end, you totally lose faith in them and when they do suddenly pick up a win, it rarely leads to anything.

Dolph is utterly screwed now. he's gone from getting promo time, his own little posse and feuding with Cena to losing clean to Miz without getting an entrance. he's Zack Ryder, without the internet.