-- 6/29 WWE Raw Reax

Benjamin Tucker of Lexington, Ky. (6.0): Best: Raw gets new talent. Worst: Cena vs. Miz. Raw is so desperate now, that I think they just make up storylines as they go. I mean, why not, as long as they end with Hunter vs. Randy? Raw has become so strange lately with so many different things to stimulate ratings that I don't really even know what's happening on the shows anymore. One week Trump buys Raw. Next week Vince buys back Raw. This week there's a secret draft which is done to save Raw at ECW's expense. Even so, I'm sure that we'll still be seeing Randy-Cena-Trips matches until hell freezes over, no matter how many solid wrestlers there are on Raw. How about this. Mondays on Raw we'll see guys like Kofi, Swagger, and the Miz make names for themselves. Then we'll create a Wednesday show where Hunter beats the snot out of Randy for two hours, until Legacy comes out and Orton scores the win. In speaking of shows, did Vince forget about ECW, or did he purposely gut the show, leaving us only with Ryder, Shelton, Dreamer, and Christian, who will probably be drafted to Smackdown next year. Oh, well. I'm sure ECW will still be better than Raw, but we'll have to wait and see. The show itself was okay. They gave the divas some time to have a decent match, once again making Rosa Mendes look pathetic, and the tag match was fine. MVP jobbing to Trips made me cringe, as well as remembering how great The Miz was three days ago. Not anymore. The Kofi match was a waste of time and seeing Randy get pummeled by everyone in the ECW locker room wasn't the best, but at least it introduced some new people. Mark Henry as a face, though? Do we really need another Khali or smiling Kozlov? Vince thinks so, apparently. Anyway, the show was okay, but if Raw stays the way it is, I can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Alex Roberts in the U.K. (3.0) Best Match: Miz vs. Cena. Worst Match: Divas Match. Another week and another terrible edition of Raw, but once again there are small specks of light at the end of this very long and very dark tunnel. The opening segment was one of the worst Raw openings I've ever seen. McMahon's announcements were lifeless and Batista delivered a promo that was beyond wooden. In fact Batista looked lost throughout the night. On the subject of McMahon's announcements, how sad is it that the WWE needs to shake up the brands with a 15-man mega trade this soon after a draft? The opening was followed up with Triple H once again hammering home his all-around, all-conquering levels of awesomeness. Despite being practically crippled by Randy Orton last night, he still managed to beat MVP in less than five minutes. I'm not sure how WWE could have made it any clearer that MVP isn't in Triple H's league. The Unified Tag Titles match was the standard WWE formula tag match and as a result fairly dull. It is however nice to see that Edge has found a new person to get him heat since he's completely incapable of doing it himself - has there ever been a more useless top tier heel than Edge? The Tag Titles match also brought us the start of the traditional, "you just lost the titles now you have to split" angle with The Colons. What a waste. I am however strangely looking forward to Maryse vs. Mickie. And now the tiny specks of light at the end of the tunnel. Cena-Miz was a massive improvement on their match at The Bash. Despite the poor finish, Miz came out of this match looking fairly strong and Cole and Lawler did a good job of putting him over. Of course the key will be how the WWE follows up with The Miz next week. The Million Dollar Man is next weeks guest host - that's fantastic even if it does mean Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Orton next week is inevitable. I'll likely be in the minority here but I also weirdly enjoyed the Show-Kofi match. I'm looking forward to see what spots he can put together with Show. Plus putting him in the ring with Show gives WWE the chance to showcase how impressive Kofi's vertical leap actually is. The Gauntlet main event also provided some potentially great shake-up for the Raw brand even if it was at the expense of the ECW brand, which will no doubt depress me when I watch ECW this week. Credit must also be given to Randy Orton, who continues to be the most selfless main event guy in pro-wrestling right now. He willingly gave all three of Bourne, Swagger, and Henry a lot last night and it's hard to imagine the vast majority of the main event scene doing the same. As far as the trades themselves go, Bourne on Raw will either be great or horrible depending on whether the WWE actually uses him. If they let him be the human highlight reel every week then Raw just got a lot more exciting and a potential brilliant Kofi-Bourne match or even partnership is now waiting in the wings. Meanwhile Jack Swagger on Raw is also potentially brilliant if the WWE can avoid the temptation to throw him right into the main event mix and gives him time to keep developing and improving. Swagger as the central figure of a rebuilt Raw mid card could be fantastic, unfortunately I'm not holding my breath on that. However the opening of a potential alliance between Swagger and Orton last night was great and despite it not really making much sense, Swagger as the fourth member of Legacy would actually work for me. And then we have Mark Henry. I have mixed feelings about this. I think it's great that Raw ended with somebody different as the central focus, but I just can't get past the fact that it was Mark Henry and an apparently newly turned face Mark Henry at that. To his credit, has come into his own on ECW but I'm still not sure I can get behind a serious main event push for him on Raw especially not as a face. Of course at this stage, beggers can't be choosers and we have to take new main events wherever we can get them.

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