KELLER'S WWE RAW BLOG
JUNE 13, 2011
LIVE ON USA NETWORK

-Good lines from the Miz... Miz to Alex Riley: "Tonight, I'm going to expose you more than a Tweet from Anthony Weiner"... Miz to the crowd shouting "What?!": "That was cool in 2001, by the way"...

-Steve Austin and Miz had nice chemistry out there. Austin still has it. Although he emasculated Miz a bit, that's the type of character Miz plays. It was good of Austin to give an endorsement to Alex Riley.

-Good basic paint-by-nuimbers set-up for the Big Show vs. Del Rio match on PPV. Not that Austin necessarily wants it, and not that there might not be diminishing returns with a personality as big as his, but making him the official G.M. going forward would be tempting given how he's performing in the role tonight.

-Jerry Lawler: "In all honesty, Cody Rhodes has always been ugly. He was so ugly, as a baby his mother made him breast feed through a straw." That might be the lamest joke in Lawler's history on Raw. Hey, by definition, one of them has to be the worst.

-The six-man tag felt very much thrown together, without any sense of character development or a purpose. Nothing at stake. Fans weren't given any reason to care about any of them. It's just a sign of watering things down to fill three hours. When the match was over, it was forgotten.

-That smile on John Morrison's face when Austin revealed him as Truth's opponent just epitomized why he isn't "money." It's hard to put a finger on it, but he's got that Josh Koscheck "I hate you, and I'm not entirely sure why, but you bug the sh-- out of me" vibe to him that fans pick up on.

-The Santino vs. Sheamus match was more lazy filler. These three-hour shows are just awful as it's just stretching out their creative energies and other than the opening segment, they clearly can't wait to just get to the main two hours.

-Did anyone see that "Hit the Switch" t-shirt and say, "I definitely want to wear that"?

-It was bad enough when Christian came up short of the middle rope when Rey sent him toward the ropes for a 619, so Christian lifted himself into position on the second rope. But then later in the match, Rey knocked Christian off the ropes and Christian landed on the mat, then rotated into perfect position on his back for a top rope Rey splash. It didn't even matter because C.M. Punk ran out and Rey turned and dove onto him instead. It drew undo attention to the orchestration of these moves.

-WWE goes weird places with their "WWE Facts" each week, but bragging about having more Twitter followers than Disney, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Microsoft, Nickelodeon, and McDonalds was as pointless as it gets. Gee, more Twitter followers than a network aimed at kids too young to have Twitter accounts or a soft drink company?

-It's good to see these short music videos pushing second tier talent and showing off their signature moves and personality.

-Jerry Lawler: "Vickie Guerrero calls herself a cougar. That means she's not young, but she's not dead, so she's somewhere in between."

-Roddy Piper stole Booker T's line when he said 25 years ago he "dropped Mr. T like a bad habit" at WrestleMania 2 in that very arena.

-Alex Riley just sharing the stage with Roddy Piper - and looking like he belongs - takes him another notch up toward main event status. I've been a proponent of him for a while, and WWE is making a good move elevating him and giving him a chance to break out as a new top star.

-A one minute 12-woman tag match. Wow. That's a record, I think.

-C.M. Punk to Steve Austin: "Can you say the alphabet backwards." Austin replies: "I can whip your ass backwards."

-I suppose it's good that Truth ended with heel heat by beating up Cena and stealing his title belt. Overall, a lackluster, too-long episode of WWE TV. Austin helped keep it watchable because he got to interact with some different people than he has before, but it wasn't enough to make this a strong Raw or make WWE feel like a hot product at all.

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