Monday Night Raw Review - August 15, 2011

Great way to kick off Raw with COO of the WWE Triple H cutting a short and effective promo. Alberto Del Rio's WWE Championship celebration wasn't as over-the-top as it could of been, seeing he's held parties in the past for nothing that amounts to his title victory. Nonetheless, he cut a passionate promo that explained why he deserved the WWE Championship and hyping the night's main event.

Extremely solid match from John Morrison and R-Truth to hopefully culminate the long-lasting rivalry. Both Superstars showed immense amount of offense and gave us some very cool spots given the Falls Count Anywhere stipulation. Although I'm a bit disappointed to not see this hyped or take place on a pay-per-view, I'm glad Morrison was finally to earn his first meaningful victory in months, while keeping Truth strong.

The Miz has never looked more ridiculous than he did last night. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Miz fan, but what in the hell did that stupid promo accomplish besides promoting Subway? You know it was a horrible segment if the crowd members start to chant "Subway sucks!".

Not a horrible Divas tag team pitting Divas Champion Kelly Kelly and Eve against the Bella Twins. It was over typically over quickly, kept the champ with some momentum going forward, and somewhat furthered their feud against the Divas of Doom, Beth Phoenix and Natalya.

By far, the highlight of the night was the exchange between CM Punk and the returning Kevin Nash. Although he seemed a bit rusty on the mic, Punk brought the best out of Nash by including some comedy and realism apart of their promo. The mystery continues as to who sent the text message to Nash to attack Punk at SummerSlam, and I'm highly anticipating this on-going intriguing rivalry between them, while also building towards the Second City Savior's inevitable feud with Triple H.


Seeing they had a great match a few weeks ago on WWE Superstars, this rematch from Jack Swagger and Alex Riley was a bit disappointing. These two are capable of so much more, and to see this overshadowed by stupid antics involving Dolph Ziggler and Vickie makes Swagger's anticipated victory meaningless. Here's hoping they insert all three men into the United States Championship picture come Night of Champions.

Decent tag team match that actually some unique and realistic double team maneuvers. Seeing the tag team division is dead, I am loving the combo team of Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne due to their excellent chemistry. The Usos would make good candidates for taking the belts off the boring, stale McGillicutty and Otunga, but putting Bourne and Kingston will certainly mean for some exciting future matches.

Yet another awesome match from Alberto Del Rio and Rey Mysterio, with the videos leading up the main event bout making the crowd electric for the hometown hero Mysterio. I had no doubts Del Rio was retaining here, but they still provided strong in-ring work that showed flashes of their inaugural match nearly a year ago. I'm glad that Cena only managed to make one appearance on the show instead of the usual handful as it makes his run-ins more hot as far as the crowd goes. This is the intensity we need to see from Cena each and every week on the mic, and the probable feud with Del Rio over the title going into Night of Champions is long overdue.

Overall, a good, relaxing show in my opinion that included some solid matches, further developed on-going stories, and gave us a breath of fresh air following SummerSlam. Hopefully, the intriguing main event stories can translate into ratings and hype going into next month's Night of Champions pay-per-view.