WWE RAW Coverage: Storyline Progression, Little Else

The journey down the road to Wrestlemania takes a brief rest stop at the Elimination Chamber PPV in less than two weeks.

With two elimination chamber matches for both respective World Titles in the loom, viewers shouldn’t believe the main event picture for Wrestlemania 28’s fully painted just yet.

Raw wasn’t sensational by any means, but several storylines progressed in the meantime and that at least makes for good television.

Royal Rumble winner Sheamus continued to look strong, Undertaker refused to take Triple H’s “no” for an answer in terms of another Wrestlemania match and the already hot Jericho/CM Punk feud gained more steam.

Matches:

Daniel Bryan (w/AJ) vs. Big Show: AJ sported a neck brace as Bryan brought her out to ringside again. This set the scene for almost another re-occurrence of what happened when Big Show took out AJ on Smackdown. Show stopped himself just in time to save AJ, but Bryan stormed off to the ramp and was counted out and claimed Show took her out on purpose the first time.

Sheamus vs. David Otunga: The shady lawyer mounted some offense but was soon done in by the Brogue kick. Glorified squash.

Wade Barrett/Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton/The Great Khali: The four “chambermates” squared off in tag team action although all four participants couldn’t care less if they were partners, as they each took cheap shots at each other throughout. Khali got the pin when he caught Rhodes after he jumped from the ropes and nearly chopped him in half. Orton sought revenge for Khali’s cheap shots at him with an RKO. As Michael Cole said, “It’s every man for himself in the elimination chamber.” Good PPV hype.

Tamina/Kelly Kelly/Alicia/Eve vs. Beth/Natalya/Bella Twins: In yet another pointless eight-diva tag, Tamina used the legendary Super Splash to score the pinfall. Beth’s talk of having been “grown tired” with the Diva division leaves hope that Kharma makes her TV return soon.

R-Truth vs. Chris Jericho vs. The Miz vs. CM Punk vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler: One of the highlights of this “six pack challenge” to determine the last man to be released from his chamber included a nasty Truth bump as he hit the floor hard when he dived out of the ring at Miz. Doctors took Truth out of the match afterwards. The last two minutes of the match were the most superb, as Punk caught Ziggler with the GTS and went for the cover but was pulled out of the ring by Jericho and shoved over the announce table. Jericho ran in the ring and covered Dolph for the easy 1-2-3 and made sure to use the ropes for good measure. Jericho sent Punk a message as he sat in the ring with the belt Indian-style like Punk usually does. A little all over the place but highly fun towards the end and the right man went over.

Final Thoughts: This show wasn’t oven-hot like last week but the key words here are “storyline progression,” and there definitely was that this week. Other aspects of the show were great too, as the Undertaker video package was superb, as was the Jericho-Punk segment and John Laurinaitis has truly come into his own as a heel authoritative figure. Other parts of the show like the forgettable Divas match and the abominable Kane/Eve segment didn’t take away too much, but as long as WWE has their eyes set on Wrestlemania, Raw’s streak of decent shows should continue.