Quick RAW Thoughts for the 12/15 Show

I once again want to apologize for the lack of updates from me on TBLWrestling.com. I not had my regular Internet service for over a week now, thus I’ve been forced to use the unreliable wireless laptop connection I own. All should be settled in a couple of days the latest!

RAW was a decent show tonight. It was a typical post-PPV showing from WWE.

I am sure I wasn’t the only person who was intrigued by the Kane and Kelly Kelly storyline that was started on the show. At first I was a bit worried this will play out poorly having in mind Kane’s track record with storylines such as this one in the past, but I have to say – they really did a good job with the backstage vignettes; in fact, it was better than I expected. The one thing about this type of storylines is that you never know where it’s going and often times you don’t get much out of it. This seems to be leading to a match featuring Kane and Kelly’s “boyfriend” who’s now the point of it all. It was also a very nice touch by WWE to give Kelly some brain by having her get out of the situation by throwing Miz in the fire. Michael Cole did a horrible job selling this, as the Miz/Kelly connection was obvious from the Extreme Expose days in ECW where she was one of Miz’s managers. The segment in the back with Candice and Mickie also added some quality to this storyline. As far as who the “boyfriend” is I have this weird feeling it’ll be CM Punk. That’s a complete guess. By the way if this was TNA, we would know who the boyfriend is by now, and Kelly would have turned on him already.

Another major storyline progression we saw tonight was with Milena Roucka — the Beth Phoenix fan at ringside who’s been around for the past few weeks with absolutely no recognition by the announcers or anyone else. If you missed it, Roucka is supposed to start as a “Beth stalker” and has been at ringside holding Beth Phoenix signs in the past few weeks. Tonight, they took it slowly by having Beth interact with her in the crowd and Santino took a picture of the two of them. It’s nice to see them take their time with a debut for once. This is also a good place for me to complain that we didn’t get enough Santino time tonight. What’s up with that?!

To wrap up the “advancement” of storylines, I liked that they aired the Shawn Michaels promo from Armageddon. Although it cheapens the value of the PPV by just showing a clip the next night for free, it was a great promo that advanced the storyline and everyone needed to be aware of it. It was also a nice touch for them to explain that the DX vignette plugging WWEShop.com was filmed a few weeks ago, thus the readers shouldn’t be confused by why is Shawn happy and participating into other “things” on RAW when he works for JBL. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with this storyline, as they have huge holes to jump over as it is, and with both men in action next week, it would make sense to see the progression on Monday. By the way, what is really Shawn’s job? It would be nice to know.

Speaking of next Monday, I liked the idea that Stephanie put together for the four matches ending in a four-way for the #1 contendership match. My only problem with it is that we just sat through a three-weeks-long tournament to determine a #1 contender for the IC belt.

Chris Jericho was absolutely amazing tonight. He has really hit a peak, and continues to master his character. Kudos to him for doing such a great job with his character who is now officially getting over with fans as a serious heel. Good job by WWE of sticking Duggan in that position. They’ve done this before (with Priceless in Jericho’s spot), and the results were positive the first time. This time around, Cryme Tyme seems to be involved in some way which is yet another new storyline to look out for. Good build here!

Overall, the action tonight was good. Punk/Kingston vs. Miz/Morrison was a great match, and the main event was pretty decent. They gave their matches more time which always helps. Lastly, Deuce going by Sim Snucka was a much needed introduction of a new serious character and while I would have liked to see him pin Mysterio with the help of Priceless, it seems he’s a lock for the second-generation heels, which is something I’m looking forward to.

In other words, there’s plenty of time for the Royal Rumble which allows WWE to build properly which they’re doing a great job of right now. Let’s hope they don’t screw it up next week!!!