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WWE Monday Night Raw 1/16/2012 - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The Funkasaurus returned, John Cena gave in to the dark side and Perez Hilton showed up to embarass everyone this week on WWE Monday Night Raw. Read our breakdown of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly moments from this week's Raw!

Aubrey By Aubrey Sitterson January 17, 2012
  

This week's Monday Night Raw was all about giving viewers what they wanted, whether that meant a large, heavily tattooed man jiggling around and beating up another man in a comical manner, the continued post-modern meta-heelery of Chris Jericho, John Cena Embracing the HateTM or even CM Punk laying it out straight for John Laurinaitis. While it wasn't perfect, this week's Raw was about as solid as you can hope for from a weekly, live two-hour wrestling show featuring Perez Hilton.

For more details about what I loved, as well as what didn't really work for me, keep reading as I run down the good, bad and downright ugly moments from this week's show. Then, like us on Facebook and get thee to Twitter, where you can follow me as I tweet about Raw live and SmackDown on a convenient 38-hour delay.

Finally, if you haven't already, make sure to read last week's "Straight Shoot" column: Was Undertaker vs. Triple HHH Better Than John Cena vs. CM Punk? And don't forget to keep an eye out for a new installment of the hottest column in fixed sports Internet criticism this Thursday.

Looking for even more insight about last night's Raw? Check out Brandon Stroud's The Best and Worst of Raw over at our friends WithLeather.Uproxx.com.

 

 

 

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WWE Raw 1/16/2012
Credit: WWE

Good – Punk’s Pipebomb

Even better than Monday Night Raw's main event, however, was what came next. After having the finish of the match overturned by John Laurinaitis, a fired-up CM Punk verbally laid into the Interim General Manager. Since last summer, Punk has been chasing the high of his jaw-dropping quasi-shoot promo on the entrance ramp, and for a number of reasons (most of them not his fault), he hasn't been quite able to get back to that point. This week wasn't that good, but it was close, and fun to see him finally start pushing back against Laurinaitis, getting really vicious with his verbal barbs.

At first I was a little worried that the altercation would come to blows. Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited for that to happen eventually, but tonight is too early in their feud. When it comes, it really needs to be the pay-off to a long-simmering frustration on Punk's part. Then, after Punk stormed out, I started to get worried that Foley would lay out Laurinaitis. Again, I'd love to see it, but it'd completely take the wind out of Punk's sails if someone else got to hit the IGM before he did. Thankfully, WWE knew better than that, and instead had Laurinaitis knock Foley out with the microphone, garnering even more heat for the reviled authority figure. Really smart, restrained, well-paced stuff to end a great episode of Monday Night Raw.

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