WWE Monday Night Raw 3/12/2012 - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

When WWE repackaged the big, shockingly quick and agile Brodus Clay as the dancing, jiggling Funkasaurus, I was, to say the least, skeptical. It seemed like a poor use of Clay’s talents, as well as one in a long line of big men turned into big fat love machines for cheap laughs. That said, I watched Clay’s subsequent appearances with a big old helping of crow, because he absolutely sold the gimmick and took part in matches that were actually kind of enjoyable – especially for squashes.

Then, for reasons that remain unknown for sure (dirt sheets claim it was because McMahon didn’t think his in-ring work was up to snuff), Clay was taken off of television. It was a batshit crazy decision – they debuted him, people popped, they started bringing signs and cheering for the guy and then...nothing. If he wasn’t ready to be on television, WWE shouldn’t have brought him out in the first place, as all inexplicably keeping him off TV did was cool his momentum.

When the Funkasaurus returned this week, it was with the same gimmick, same music and same girls as before. And his ringwork didn’t really look any different as he went about squashing Jinder Mahal in a quick, unremarkable match. Still, capricious booking decisions aside, it’s great to have Clay back, and I’m hoping WWE gets him involved in something more than short, useless squashes before long, as they’re running out of heel jobbers to throw at him.

I’m excited about Shawn Michaels’ involvement in the Triple H/Undertaker match at WrestleMania XXVIII. Even with the totally badass Hell in a Cell stipulation, the match itself seemed to be missing something storywise, so I like that HBK has become involved, bringing with him all the baggage of his two classic back-to-back Mania matches against Undertaker, as well as his long and storied relationship with Triple H. All good stuff, and I have generally disagreed with folks who opined that his involvement took away from the real story between HHH and Taker. This week, however, I started to come around to that point of view.

I still love HBK as the referee for the match, but he and Undertaker’s showdown this week seemed completely superfluous, as it made the story too much about their relationship. I understand that WWE maybe wanted to fill folks in on the backstory, and I appreciate that they didn’t just do it with a video package, but the segment itself just felt flat, up until Triple H came out to give Taker an executive crotch-chop, which I enjoyed more than I care to admit.

Another thought that I couldn’t get out of my head while watching this segment has to do with the age of the guys involved and how many years of competing they realistically have ahead of them. HBK is already retired, and it’s not going out on a limb to say that Triple H and Taker are both in the process of winding their careers down, so I wonder about the wisdom of WWE blowing their entire “grizzled old veteran” load on a single WrestleMania match. Personally, there are a number of younger guys I’d like to see mix it up with Triple H and Taker before they hang up their boots forever, and it could potentially be a good way to get younger talent up to the next level.

Within Ring of Honor continuity, it was firmly established through a feud with Raven that CM Punk’s straight edge lifestyle came about as a result of his father being an alcoholic. This week, however, that tidbit of possibly-true information about Punk became part of WWE canon, as Chris Jericho took to the Titantron and announced his plan to beat Punk so badly at WrestleMania that he’ll not only take a drink, but he’ll become a full-blown alcoholic like his father. There are a lot of things I like about this.

First, it makes use of CM Punk’s awesome straight-edge gimmick, which I could spend an entire “Straight Shoot” column praising. It also blurs the line between fact and fiction, which is when wrestling is at its best, and it turns Jericho into kind of a reprehensible scumbag, which is when he’s at his best, so fantastic all around. The only thing I’m not a huge fan of is how long it took WWE to get around to it – there’s some fantastic stuff to mine here, and I wish they’d gone to this well sooner than a couple weeks out from WrestleMania.

Going a little out of order here for structure’s sake, so bare with me as we go back in time a full five minutes, before Jericho’s mug ever showed up on the Titantron, back when Punk was still facing the Miz in a shockingly decent match. I know I’ve seen these two lock horns numerous times in the past, but I’d be hard pressed to try and actually remember any of those matches, as they’ve been forgettable at best. Something must have clicked between the two of them though, because this week they put on a match, which while not a clinic by any stretch of the imagination, was still a pretty decent show, and didn’t leave the Miz looking too awful in the wake of his loss.

Of course, the match wasn’t really about anything other than the Miz’s deepening relationship with Psych’s James Roday, existing mainly as a way to get to Jericho calling Punk’s dad an alcoholic. It was really just an excuse to fill minutes with unrelated wrestling while keeping the WrestleMania plates spinning, much like both the earlier Santino handicap match, as well as the very next contest on the card...