Instant Reaction - WWE Raw 10/20
By Benjamin Tucker, PWTorch TV specialist

Overall Score - 5.5

Overexposure was the theme of Monday's Raw. Eight separate segments of the three-hour program featured some combination of John Cena, Dean Ambrose, and The Authority. What resulted was a mixture of competent and downright terrible hype for Hell in a Cell, leaving viewers on a sour note six nights before the "most dangerous night of the year" that doesn't take place in February.

Cena and Orton's promo exchange was a fine potential ending to Raw. Randy felt like he was overcompensating for being stuck in a second-rate feud and Cena's "PG" humor couldn't have felt more out of place, but Paul Heyman brought the segment together and Orton came out looking stronger than he has in months.

In turn, the Ambrose-Rollins exchange was mixed but ended well enough. Once again it was the external player (Mick Foley) who made the segment worth watching, overcoming lame mannequin humor to put over the long-simmering feud and the Hell in a Cell structure. Both of these portions of the show provided adequate enough build for the PPV.

Of course, neither of these closed Raw. Instead the viewer was presented with a solid handicap match that ended up killing time and further exposing Sunday's competitors to each other. While half of Raw felt like the typical sort of filler, the other half felt like it was trying too hard, throwing main event competitors on television multiple times and creating shock value segments (such as the U.S. Soldier debacle) to generate emergency last second Network buys. While the effort given tonight was marginally superior to Raws in recent months, a lot was left to be desired. After seeing Dean Ambrose plastered on my screen for three hours, why would I pay to see more?

The typical high quality of wrestling expected from a Raw broadcast was also somewhat lacking tonight. Dolph Ziggler and Cesaro's thrown-together match was arguably the best of the show, with most of the contests existing only to pay lip service to the feuds that they are supposed to be hyping. The Bella Twins feud was focused on for a matter of seconds, as was A.J.'s months-long storyline with Paige. The Tag Title feud was once again tossed into a match where it was overshadowed by a singles champion, created an overwhelming sense of apathy before the end of the show.

What's even worse about Raw are the constant tiny moments that completely destroy any sense of momentum that a segment carries. Whether it's Triple H's Network plugs or Dean Ambrose's mannequin, the Hell in a Cell structure was treated like a serial killer would be at a carnival. Woah, that thing sure is dangerous. In the mean time, how about a joke? This horrible sense of timing killed a large portion of credibility found on the broadcast.

And ultimately it's the little things that was Raw's undoing tonight. Segment by segment this was not a horrible show, but the incredible over-saturation of WWE's key characters combined with a hodge podge of throwaway and face-palmingly schizophrenic segments generated a lackluster final attempt to sell the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view. Another fall Raw down. Only about ten more to go...

Questions? Comments? Reactions? Find me on Twitter @BTuckerTorch, where I talk about wrestling and... stuff!

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