Monday Night Raw Review - August 29, 2011

Decent opening from Triple H, CM Punk and Kevin Nash, but predictable seeing HHH almost always kicks off the show in this fashion. It set up the anticipated Punk vs. Nash match at Night of Champions, and displayed further tension between best friends Nash and Hunter. Honestly, my favorite part about this entire segment was the return of Nash's nWo music.

Very strong opening match between World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton and United States Champion Dolph Ziggler. They were given excellent time, and their bout proved to be the Match of the Night. The match succeeded in getting Ziggler over big time as an in-ring threat and managed to get the U.S. some credibility as well despite it not being on the line.

John Cena's promo got better when Mark Henry made his presence known, but I don't see why Christian needed to get involved. I was hoping for a singles bout between Cena and Henry, but the tag team match was just as good, which I'll get back to towards the end of the show.

Being one of my dream matches I've been highly anticipating, the match between CM Punk and The Miz wasn't as awesome (no pun intended) as I'd hoped it be. It was pretty good as a whole, but I think the crowd was the problem here in not getting into the action. The R-Truth run-in was well done in saving this program for a later date, as well as signaling a potential partnership between Nash and Awesome Truth.

Good match from Sin Cara and Jack Swagger seeing it was on live television and there weren't many botched spots. As much I want managers to actually mean something, I'm not really sure where they're going with this tension between Swagger, Vickie, and Ziggler. I would like to see them clash over the United States Championship, but only if it includes Alex Riley.

Simple and effective tag team championship rematch. I'm glad they acknowledged the rematch clause  and didn't give us this bout at Night of Champions, where Awesome Truth should be challenging. Seeing that Lawler was right in saying that the team of David Otunga and Micheal McGillicutty are indeed boring, I don't see the point in having them feud with a commentator who should have never stepped back in the ring a few months ago in the first place.

Why won't WWE just let the feud between the Bellas and Kelly Kelly and Eve just die? Oh yeah, cause those are the only four Divas active on the Raw roster. The match was terrible given who was involved, and I'm baffled as to why Brie picked up the victory. I'm rioting if I see the Bellas go back for the title they don't deserve come Night of Champions. Get the Divas of Doom in the ring ASAP and get this feud rolling.

Standard main event match with John Cena and Sheamus logically defeating Christian and Mark Henry. Everyone was able to shine, but I'm not high on the idea of having Christian getting pinned going into his World Heavyweight Championship match on Super SmackDown. On a side note, the announcement of CM Punk vs. Triple H that followed was very anticlimactic and should have been made a bigger deal of either on SuperSmackDown or next week's Raw.

Overall, another very strong show, with much star power that hyped up SuperSmackDown and furthered a handful amount of stories. I do understand Alberto Del Rio was away with a visa issue in Mexico, but they could have at least aired a video package to keep his momentum going. With a few weeks remaining until Night of Champions, I'm hopeful WWE can stay rolling on the hot mystery they have going with the text message and announce more matches for the pay-per-view.