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Donald Trump "buying Raw" should get some mainstream publicity, although not as much as last time. More importantly, it should help Vince McMahon feel better. The rest of the show, with the exception of Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio, was mediocre work from the usual suspects.
Tony Donofrio, PWTorch.com Contributor (5.5)
There's two things that come to mind when I think about last night's Raw. First, Chris Jericho opening the show and saying that Raw has gone into the toilet since the draft is true, it's damn true! Secondly, Vince McMahon bringing in Donald Trump as the owner of Raw screams out as to how desperate Vince is for ratings at this point.
When I think about the Raw ownership angle, I come to two conclusions. The first is that I'm over-thinking it and I need to stop. The second is that how can Vince sell Raw to someone else? He could sell his shares to Donald Trump for partial ownership of the company. He could make Trump the GM. How does he sell just Raw? IF we're to believe that Raw has been sold, that means that Raw ceases to be a WWE production. Therefore, Raw is it's own separate company now, but it still recognizes the WWE Title as it's champion. Is that what's happening now (in storyline, of course)? I know it's been done before with WCW and TNA recognizing the NWA Champion as their own, but I don't think I'm buying this. Here's hoping this is very short term but I have a feeling we're in for some more bad TV in the coming weeks, commercial free or not.
The WWE Title picture was cleared up a little and I wasn't surprised to see Orton win it back. However, he's been made out to look so weak in the past few weeks that I'm thinking maybe WWE should have tried to built him back up again before putting the strap back on him. We also get Orton vs. Triple H (yet again) for the title next week. I was really hoping they'd throw a curve at us and someone like MVP would have won the 10 man battle royal. No such luck I guess.
The rest of Raw was mostly forgettable with the exception of the Smackdown portions of the show. Jericho was great on the mic and his match with Rey Mysterio was really good (to no one's surprise I'm sure). The Triple Threat for the World Heavyweight Title was damn good also and had me really believing that Jeff Hardy or Edge were going to walk out with the title. But in the end, I think the right decision was made to keep the title on CM Punk. The Smackdown portion of the show is what made Raw go slightly above "thumbs in the middle" status. Christian vs. Tommy Dreamer wasn't anything special but as I've said in my "Hits and Misses" from "Extreme Rules" and my ECW Roundtable Review from last week, Dreamer doesn't really have the ability to put on great matches, in my opinion. Here's hoping that WWE's television programming (oh I'm sorry, Raw isn't a WWE production anymore, right?) gets better as the week goes on, as it has seemed to for the past so many months now.
Brian Hoops, PWTorch.com Contributor (5.5)
This was a pretty newsworthy edition of Raw with the new main storyline that Donald Trump has purchased Raw from Vince McMahon. With no buildup or storyline, this bomb was dropped on the three hour edition of Raw. There are so many logic holes with this storyline, I don't know where to start, so I will just let it slide. In fact, most of the storylines have lots of logic holes as the company doesn't seem to have any idea of what they are building towards from PPV to PPV, let alone long term plans like main events or feuds to the big company shows like SummerSlam, the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania.
There is a PPV in less than two weeks, with exactly one match announced, CM Punk defending against Jeff Hardy, which hardly sounds like a marquee match to build the PPV around. That being said, I thought the Jericho vs. Mysterio match was great and this feud has been the best thing the company is offering. The three way match for the World Title was also good and the four way for the WWE Title was better than it had any right to be. Overall, it felt like an average to slightly above average show.
Greg Parks, PWTorch.com Contributor (6.5)
Three above-average matches that got some decent time to shine, a bombshell announcement with some intriguing possibilities and a good tease for next week's show, and some good mic work by The Miz, Goldust and C.M. Punk all added up to a thumbs-up show in my mind.
The Trump thing people are either loving or hating, but I'm willing to wait before I pass judgment. It wasn't the ideal person I was hoping Vince was "selling" to, but it certainly was big news in the sports entertainment bubble that is Raw. The downside of this was it came out of nowhere, with no hints that Vince was even thinking of this. Heck, only a few weeks ago, Vince was out on Raw prouder than a peacock in lambasting E. Stan Kroenke in front of his beloved WWE Universe.
The I.C. Title match was very fast-paced, which isn't something I'm used to seeing on Raw (or Smackdown really, either). There was also lots of action in the Fatal Four-Way and I was pleasantly surprised by that match, not expecting much going in just going by the competitors featured in the match. Probably the right move to put the title back on Orton of all the guys in that one. The triple-threat was really good with some new spots, plus it added to the Hardy-Punk feud. It should be interesting to hear Punk defend his moves in this match on Smackdown.
I really enjoyed the Miz and Goldust's segment, even though Goldust bringing up the past really shows how they've cut the balls off of his character recently (as in the last three go-rounds with the company). Miz, as usual, was also money on the mic and Goldust got the rare occasion to shine on the stick. The shot to Hornswoggle by Miz was cheap, easy heat, but that's what Miz is good at. It wasn't all good though: Christian vs. Dreamer was pretty average and paled in comparison to everything else on the show; the women's match was downright bad; and DiBiase and Rhodes set themselves back with their work on commentary. Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
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