Halloween’s Monday Night RAW Super Show featured Jim Henson’s Muppets and ironically, a heck of a lot of wrestling.
Too bad many of the action wrestling action dragged and the most entertaining segments involved the Muppets [aside from the segment between John Morrison and Miss Piggy] and not WWE superstars.
All in all however, it was a decent show that begins to set the landscape more for Survivor Series.
The Rock’s promo to open the show was weird. After originally turning down Cena’s request to tag with him at Survivor Series, he suddenly changed gears and announced that he will indeed tag with Cena against The Miz and R-Truth.
The only problem was it took entirely too long for him to get there. Running about two minutes too long, The Rock was funny and channeled the type of energy Ric Flair made famous in the early ‘80s. You’d have to be one of his biggest fans however to enjoy the whole thing though.
Things picked up quickly after a Mark Henry/CM Punk encounter that furthers the angle between Alberto Del Rio and Punk. After that, The Muppets first segment was hilarious, yet Velveeta-inspired. It felt like something the company would have done in the ‘80s, mainly because it wasn’t terribly overdone and was family friendly. At the same time, it didn’t feel like a wasted promo and was fun. Wrestling loyalists may scoff at moments like this and while it wasn’t exactly memorable, it wasn’t completely wasted either.
Again, this show wasn’t entirely passable, but wasn’t geared for hardcore fans. A nice way to come home after trick or treating, RAW fully embraced its PG-rating last night.
That was both good and bad.
Matches:
World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry vs. CM Punk: A good opening match which featured some good athleticism between Punk’s top rope clothesline and elbow and Henry’s power moves. It got weird once Ricardo Rodriguez and Alberto Del Rio hit the ring and Rodriguez proceeded to hit Henry with his shoe and cause Punk to lose via DQ.
Diva Battle Royal for the #1 Contender Spot for the Diva’s Title: This was just an excuse to see the Divas in costumes. The match featured barely any technique aside from a standing moonsault from Eve Torrez and a sloppy spinning clothesline from Natayla Neidhart. After she took advantage of an opening Neidhart left, after she eliminated Kelly Kelly, Torrez got the win.
WWE Tag Team Champions Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston vs. Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes: A good match that was pretty routine until the end, which saw a decent amount of counters and near-falls before Barrett hit the Wasteland on Bourne for the win. After the match, Christian joined the part to take out Air Boom, but Sheamus was quick to help out the Tag Champs.
The Big Show vs. WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio: Show laid down the chops and various routine attacks and clotheslines early on, before the champion attempted to wear him down with submission holds. That seemed to push piss Show off though and the two continued to wrestle for what felt like an eternity. The commercial break after 10 minutes didn’t help either. Five minutes after the show came back on, Show hit Del Rio with the Weapon of Mass Destruction [It looked more like a crappy Palm Strike], for the win.
Santino Marella vs. Jack Swagger w/ Vicki Guerrero: Swagger threw Marella around for a while, in what originally looked to be a complete job. While Marella had a few seconds of offense, Swagger was in control throughout. But once Marella spit a batch of chemicals [made by Beaker earlier in the show] in Swagger’s face, a rollup was all he needed for the victory.
United States Champion Dolph Ziggler w/ Vicki Guerrero vs. Zack Ryder: Ryder continues to get a ton of support from fans, but one wonders if he will ever get a real push. He looked solid against Ziggler, hitting clotheslines from all angles and a dropkick from the turnbuckle. The United States Champion performed with precision as well as the cocky heel. But after Ryder hit his Rough Ryder finisher after a Zig-Zag counter, Ziggler could kick out by the count of three.
John Cena vs. The Miz: Ironically, The Miz took it to Cena throughout the first five or so minutes and went through nearly his entire offensive repertoire. Not ironically though, Cena made his usual comeback, two flying shoulder blocks, a belly to back suplex and then a five-knuckle shuffle. The Miz wasn’t finished yet, as he reversed the AA into a snap reverse DDT. The two then traded signature maneuvers and counters for a few minutes, as the match got interesting. Once a costumed fan [later revealed to be R-Truth] got involved on the outside, it appeared The Miz had the edge, but Cena was able to counter the Skull-Crushing finale into the STFU for the win.
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