WWE RAW Coverage: Not So Super, But Solid

The first 15 minutes of RAW last night belonged to CM Punk.

Simply put, the guy was on fire.

If making fun of Kevin Nash’s knees and his ability to draw a crowd wasn’t enough, Punk continued to verbally attack Triple H and his family. The end result was a match booked between Nash and Punk at Night of Champions.

However, by the end of the show, the match was cancelled and Punk was instead booked for a match with Triple H at the PPV.

Thankfully that was the case as few were looking forward to the actual match between these two [Nash is way past his prime and hasn’t been in the ring in almost a year] because they would have wasted Punk’s momentum in spite of the entertaining promos.

The more important news was that Smackdown superstars are now able to come on the show. With a special edition of Smackdown to air tonight and RAW superstars invited to the show, will this be the official end of the brand split?

Aside from that, the in-ring action was solid and this week’s RAW was just as engaging. However, it doesn’t solve the problem that Punk is being wasted in an angle with an over the hill Nash and a John Cena, Alberto Del Rio main event at Night of Champions is far from blockbuster.

Matches:

World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton vs. United States Heavyweight Champion Dolph Ziggler w/ Vikki Guerrero: Surprisingly, Ziggler was on the offensive for most of the match. However, with two commercial breaks during the contest, it was awfully hard to get into the action. Nevertheless, it was a great opening match, with some near-falls and a boatload of offense including a variety of suplexes and high impact strikes. After a nice back and forth pace, Orton mounted a comeback and earned the win with an RKO after Ziggler popped off the canvas from a modified front drop.

CM Punk vs. The Miz:
These two matchup well against one another and delivered the goods. Both going through their usual assortment of moves, this was another solid match until R-Truth joined the party to cause the disqualification. With no reason to fight, this match served no real purpose, other than to pit two big names against another, making it a waste of storytelling time. Luckily, to save the segment completely, Nash came to the ring and powerbombed Punk, continuing to fuel that storyline.

Sin Cara vs. Jack Swagger: A filler match that was an athletic contest with a few high-risk maneuvers. Would have made more sense as the opener, but with outside interference between with Vikki Guerrero and Ziggler, there was some drama to the encounter. That interference also led the way to a Cara win, after he hit a slingshot Senton, followed by a lionsault.

WWE Tag Champions Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston vs. David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty:
A quick match that saw some aerial maneuvers by Bourne and Kingston and little else. Kingston secured the victory with the Trouble in Paradise on McGillicutty. Afterwards, the former champs got in the face of Jerry Lawler.

WWE Divas Champion Kelly Kelly w/ Eve Torrez vs. Brie Bella w/ Nikki Bella: A two minute match that saw Nikki and Brie switch places and hit the X-Factor for the win.

John Cena and Sheamus vs. Mark Henry and Christian: Cena won the match with the Attitude Adjustment on Christian. Aside from some high spots from Sheamus on Henry, this was a pretty standard match. Nothing special.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14260 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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