By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

KELLER'S WWE RAW REPORT
APRIL 9, 2012
WASHINGTON D.C.
AIRED LIVE ON USA NETWORK

-Back from a semi-emergency trip to the vet tonight for my 17 year old dog (!!) and ready to catch up on Raw…

-They opened with clips of the Three Stooges, the guest stars for this episode.

-Quotebook - Jerry Lawler: "I am so excited. This might be the most fun Raw we have ever had. I am jacked for this."

-Seriously, they went from Three Stooges to Brock Lesnar in about two minutes.

-Interesting to hear John Laurinaitis endorse Brock Lesnar so strongly, saying he is the new face of WWE and the man who will bring legitimacy back to WWE. It seems like a good way to make sure fans boo him, I suppose. The downside is that Laurinaitis is a cartoonish pro wrestling heel character, so involving him with Lesnar might make "storyline sense" but it removes the sense that he's something different than the usual.

-Michael Cole mentioned UFC by name, noting that he won the NCAA National Wrestling Title, a King of the Ring winner, a Royal Rumble winner, and three time WWE World Title winner, and then went on to "conquer" UFC.

-I suspect it'll become clear as the show progresses why they did this, but it's a peculiar strategy to put Lesnar out there at the very start of the show rather than hype him for an hour or two first.

-That was a big slap Cena gave Lesnar, and Lesnar this week - as Bruce Mitchell suggested in his column - tackled Cena and went after him as he would in a legit UFC contest. Cena coming up bleeding - however that happened - was a fantastic touch. Cena and Lesnar's body language and facial expressions were just right. Even better, perhaps, was how seriously the dozens of wrestlers and producers reacted. Jack Swagger even showed he can make a face that doesn't appear like he's playing for laughs and acting like a goof. Lesnar's punches to the ribs looked pretty realistic, if anyone is looking for that sense that this is real.

-It's a tough line to walk between making this realistic and believable, with setting the bar so high that people need to think it's really totally real. The challenge isn't to make it seem totally real-life real (like C.M. Punk's promo last summer) because that's so tough to follow up on without people figuring it out; the goal is to just give fans something to believe in, realistic enough they can suspend their disbelief and get sucked into it. I think they did that, other than Laurinaitis's presence. They may have felt it was worth the trade-off, though, to firmly establish that Lesnar is the heel here since he got such a huge babyface pop last week.

-I enjoyed the "Blast from the Past" graphic when plugging tomorrow night's live Smackdown. Looked Atari 2600 era vintage.

-Quotebook - Jerry Lawler on Cena slapping Lesnar: "That slap was not a good idea, in my opinion."

-Now we get to see Brodus Clay move his act from squash matches to more competitive situations. He's not the smoothest worker at this point. His ring style is stylized to fit his character, but doesn't have a "main event" or "serious" feel to it at this point, probably by design.

-Jerry Lawler - "I do pullups to impress girls. I pull up in a Corvette or a Cadillac." The best part was him trying to finish that one-liner as Cole interrupted to sell Santino hot-tagging Clay.

-I can see the Laurinaitis-Teddy Long dynamic resonating with viewers who are frustrated being ordered around by their superior who, in their mind doesn't know what they're doing and is arrogant.

-Cena has blood over his mouth and nose 20 minutes after Lesnar punched him. I liked Cena saying he likes to hit and get hit. They seem to be trying to cast Cena as more than a cartoon wrestler, but someone who's tough and likes a good fight. They're using Lesnar to boost Cena.

-Again, they went from replaying Lesnar punching Cena and Cena coming bloodied right to Santino searching for the Three Stooges. If any UFC fan tuned in to see Lesnar, they're going to find that a bit jarring.

-The Three Stooges act is hilarious. I'm surprised someone didn't think of doing this type of thing, oh, 87 years ago. I am sure someone is already working on a YouTube video using the Stooges Sound Effects on top of the Lesnar-Cena pullapart brawl. Please send me a link when you're finished (or find it). Thanks!

-I sure could have used the "Dream Machine" guys' help when I had to make those cars for Boy Scouts out of that block of wood as a kid.

-Can you really effectively taunt someone by shouting their name at them when WWE hasn't denied or pretended Tensai isn't Albert? Fans will indulge. What's next, chanting Prototype at John Cena or "Lionhart" at "Y2J"? Or "Phil" at C.M. Punk?

-WWE bragged up a sold out crowd of 78,363 for WrestleMania, claiming again it broke the attendance record for Miami's Sun Life Stadium. The Wrestling Observer reports that the building was set up for 63,000 initially and probably barely topped 65,000 in a best case scenario, whereas the stadium had drawn legit crowds much larger for football game because the part of the stadium cut off by the stage is more than the seats they can put on the floor that you can't for a football game. WWE consistently exaggerates attendance for p.r. reasons and because almost nobody really calls them on it or cares enough to put up a stink. For instance, Houston's WM25 drew 61,611, but WWE announced it at 72,744. Similar difference the last two WrestleManias, too, with claims in the 71K range and actual attendance in the 61K range. Maybe there's some math game where they can rationalize it (maybe they count people twice who go out for a smoke and come back in).

-Very nice segment with C.M. Punk and Chris Jericho. Punk did a good job explaining being Straight Edge in a way that was the opposite of preachy. Jericho did an exception job being completely unlikable.

-Have they mentioned Twitter yet? What's going on? I'm kinda freaking out here. Am I numb to it now when they do it, or have they made it through a show without pushing what's trending?

-You just know Hulk Hogan is going to watch the segment with the Three Stooges spoofing Hulkamania and try to figure out if that's a fun tribute that boosts his name value or mocking him in a way that demeans him.

-Now that Monday Night Football and college bowl games are over, WWE can go back to bragging about Raw being no. 1 on cable on Monday nights again. They have a four week streak going.

-Quotebook – Brock Lesnar on UFC: “Their success is on my blood, sweat, and tears.”

-Quotebook – Brock Lesnar: “Proud? Damn right I'm proud. Proud that Johnny Laurinaitis had the wisdom to bring me back and put me back on the top where I belong.”

-Quotebook – Brock Lesnar: “I'm not here to make any friends. I'm a war machine, an ass kicker, and a proud one at that. But I'm not as proud as the WWE suits and ties all these fans are to have me back.” [Wink]

-Lesnar bragging about damaging Cena's face and saying the fans and suits are more proud he is back than he is proud to be back were key quotes in his backstage promo with Josh Mathews. His lines seemed rehearsed, yet delivered believably enough. It almost seems he's happy to be able to “be Brock Lesnar” the character without having to worry about getting beat up or losing for real. He's kinda getting back into the groove, it seems.

-Miz on Triple vs. Undertaker: “My dad would tell me about Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. I'm going to be telling this story.”

-Great video package on Triple H vs. Undertaker. They deserve it, but there's always a tinge of groaning at what an ego trip it also seems to be for Triple H with this type of thing only because I have this image of him sitting there behind the video producers overseeing that they pay him enough reverence. But really, his performance really was deserving of the tone of that video, and it was as much about Shawn Michaels and Undertaker as Triple H, too. It's not as groan-inducing as when Ric Flair was basically on payroll in Evolution to declare Triple H the new greatest ever incessantly week after week.

-David Otunga is the new Chris Masters.

-It feels like all is back to normal in the world again with the crowd chanting “Let's Go Cena! / Cena Sucks!” again. If The Rock storyline was supposed to change anything, or if Lesnar's return was supposed to change anything, it seems like it didn't work. Lesnar, though, is the type of badass heel that guys are going to love seeing beat up Cena, but also the perfect opponent to inspire Cena fans to cheer harder than ever for him.

-Lesnar's grin after kicking Cena between the legs from behind was hilarious. Lawler: “How legit was that?” So that's the word Vince McMahon is going to shove down our throats with everything Lesnar does? Legit.

-You gotta also love the fans chanting “One More Time!” at Lesnar after his first F-5 on Cena and Lesnar shakiing his finger at them in acknowledgment, almost as if he were saying to them: “You're not supposed to be cheering me. Very naughty, but keep doing it.”

-The best part of this angle is that Lesnar is back to get the top spot in WWE again, and that's being treated as something a former UFC Hvt. Champion would aspire to do. There isn't a way to make Lesnar appear to be shooting on Cena for real as fans would just roll their eyes if Cena weren't destroyed instantly, so instead they've immersed Lesnar into the WWE Universe and he's playing by the Universe's internal logic, yet by referencing the UFC history, they're not ignoring his last eight years. Instead, they're actually making it seem like he conquered UFC and now he's returned to WWE to conquer it again, positioning both as equal aspirations to have.

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