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CALDWELL: Summary of 6/1 WWE Raw - Flair gives/takes a beating, Kofi wins U.S. Title, HIGH/LOW Points Jun 1, 2009 - 10:53:19 PM
-- If you watched the show, send your Raw Reax and 0-10 score to pwtorch@gmail.com.
-- High Point: Kofi Kingston vs. MVP match. WWE gave Kofi and MVP over ten minutes and two segments to put together a nice match between two mid-card babyfaces. They hit about 85-90 percent of the "medium-to-high level" moves and combos they tried to pull off to deliver a compelling title match. WWE is apparently back on the Kofi bandwagon by putting the U.S. Title on him, but time will tell if the WWE uses the new Kofi push to make the U.S. Title mean something valuable on Raw and worthy of a PPV slot on future PPVs.
-- Low Point: Vickie-Santino slop fest. WWE continues to play to the lowest common denominator with this week's Vickie Guerrero-Santino skit. This time, Santino took a slop bath from Vickie to preview the Hog Pen match at Sunday's PPV. One second later, they were back to promoting the Randy Orton-Ric Flair parking lot brawl. Can't go from pig slop to a serious segment and expect to sell a PPV main event. Without Stan Kroenke to kick around, WWE went back to the Vickie-Santino formula for low-brow humor this week.
-- Memorable Moment: Ric Flair taking and giving a beating. Flair was the centerpiece of WWE's attempt to sell the Extreme Rules PPV by helping build up Randy Orton as a desperate, vile heel and also trying to set up viewers to pay money to watch Batista kick the crap out of Orton on Sunday. Flair was seemingly written off TV storylines when he took The Punt from Orton, but the focus at the end of Raw was on Orton-Batista leading to the PPV and there wasn't a typical post-Punt stretcher job for Flair to sell Orton's trademark move.
-- Context: Final Raw leading to the Extreme Rules PPV, which meant emphasis on the Orton-Batista cage match for the WWE Title, Cena vs. Big Show in a Submission match, and Vickie vs. Santin(a) in a Hog Pen match. Also, with the Denver Debacle out of the way last week, WWE moved away from emphasizing the "mainstream sports story of the week" to focus on selling the PPV.
-- There was no mention of Mr. Kennedy on the show after WWE said he was released on Friday night. They did show a brief clip of the "Lakers" vs. "Nuggets" match from last week's show where Mr. Kennedy was involved.
-- ECW champion Christian vs. Tyson Kidd was announced for Tuesday night's ECW TV episode.
-- MATCH RESULTS: (1) Batista beat Cody Rhodes in a steel cage match ... (2) Divas champion Maryse & Beth Phoenix beat Kelly Kelly & Mickie James ... (3) Unified tag champions Carlito & Primo Colon beat Matt Hardy & William Regal ... (4) John Cena & Chavo Guerrero beat Big Show & The Miz ... (5) Kofi Kingston beat MVP to capture the U.S. Title ... Vickie Guerrero slopped Santino ... Randy Orton and Ric Flair had a Parking Lot Brawl ending with Orton staring down Batista.
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