WWE Monday Night Raw 2/6/2012 - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Ever since John Laurinaitis was given storyline control of Monday Night Raw, it's been nice watching the show without the constant nagging worry in the back of my head that at any moment, Triple H could come out to remind us all who King Shit of the WWE F*ck Mountain really is. But we're on the road to WrestleMania, which means that Mr. Helmsley has a rematch to kind-of-sort-of make up a storyline around, so this week's Raw opened with his admittedly impressive hairline.

It's not that Triple H wasn't and isn't still a great talent - the guy's a real treasure, no sarcasm there. But whether because of power, age, ego or all three, his mere presence on television is infuriating. For me, it all comes down to the fact that Triple H wants to be all things: A Motörhead-blaring killer face, a snarky jokester, a suit-wearing COO, etc. None of it fits together, and feels more like a guy who doesn't just want your cheers, but he wants every type of cheer you can give him simultaneously - it comes off as desperate and is totally unnecessary for a wrestler of Triple H's caliber and legacy.

 

Yes, I've publicly praised last year's Taker/HHH match and just last week I talked about how excited Undertaker's return had me, but that doesn't mean I'm exactly thrilled about Undertaker vs. Triple H II (err, III). The first big irritant for me is that there are plenty of other guys I'd rather Taker face, wrestlers he hasn't already faced at WrestleMania. Fact of the matter is, we probably won't have too many more fantastic matches out of Undertaker, and it's a shame that we won't get to see big WrestleMania matches between him and Chris Jericho, John Cena, CM Punk, Sheamus or even another go-round with Randy Orton.

The other problem is that I have no idea what Taker/HHH III could possibly be about. WWE did their level best to explain it all to us this week, but it was exactly the type of non-explanation explanation that most of us were likely expecting: Undertaker doesn't like that he won their match but couldn't leave the ring of his own volition (and was presumably locked up in a torch-lit projection room for the better part of a year). Trouble is, with Taker having been off television, and Triple H only intermittently featured, the match feels like it's coming out of left field, and as of now, there's nothing even at stake in the proposed contest.

The ongoing feud between Daniel Bryan and Big Show has to be my absolute favorite in WWE right now, hands-down. Bryan is one of my favorite wrestlers anywhere, and Big Show is still a tremendous worker when he's given something good to do, so a big part of my love for this angle comes from the always different, always interesting matches the two put on. Even though I can't conceive of any believable way that Bryan got Big Show into a single-leg Boston Crab on Raw this week, I still love the type of giantslayer stories the two have been telling most every week on SmackDown and this week in a solid, entertaining Raw match that made excellent use of AJ and the preexisting storyline involving the three.

But what elevates the two's matches from simply entertaining to truly fascinating is Daniel Bryan's character, which is easily one of wrestling's most interesting, nuanced and many-faceted. I plan on getting more into it in this week's Straight Shoot, but the best part about Bryan's heel character is that he's not actually doing anything wrong, aside from occasional shouting about being Vegan, and even that's debatable depending on the status of your PETA membership. Bryan isn't a sneering Iago-like villain - he's a well-rounded character with a goal he wants to accomplish in spite of incredible odds. Tweak things slightly to the right and he could easily be seen as simply an underdog, or even a cunning face.

Throughout this week's show, the focus was understandably on the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, which will emanate from Milwaukee, Wisconsin a week from this Sunday. I love the Elimination Chamber as much as anybody - outside of Money in the Bank, they're probably my favorite wacky match type - but even I have a hard time justifying the decision to run the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view right before WrestleMania.

In order for Elimination Chamber to feel meaningful, fans have to believe that both the WWE and World Heavyweight Titles could very well change hands inside the Chamber. But, with those two huge question marks in the card, it becomes increasingly difficult to build toward WrestleMania, which is meant to be the biggest show of the year, and accordingly, could probably benefit from whatever advance publicity WWE can spare. Right now, outside of the Rock and John Cena, the only thing that's locked down for WrestleMania is Sheamus, but for all we know as fans, he could very well end up squaring off against World Heavyweight Champion The Great Khali, and who the hell wants to see that? Unless it's in a Punjabi Prison Match, in which case we ALL want to see it. Badly. Extremely badly. Very extremely badly.