Monday Night Raw Review - May 16, 2011

Having Alex Riley open the show was an excellent move, as he truly shined in his promo and made me looking forward to his future days in singles competition.The video package showcasing The Miz and his high intensity was simply awesome to say the least, and a good attempt to rebuild the Awesome One going into Over the Limit on Sunday.

I literally marked out after hearing CM Punk was taking on Kofi Kingston, seeing they had yet to face each other in a singles match and given their history together. I was a little disappointed to see the match only last four minutes, but at least Punk went over clean in order to gain back some momentum he's lost recently.

The Divas match was weak as expected, but I can only hope it leads to Kelly Kelly taking the belt off Brie Bella seeing that the twins do not make good champions. The angle with Kharma furthers my interest, and hopefully leads to a match between the two down the line.

Rey Mysterio and Alberto Del Rio always deliver strong matches, even if the finish was a little weak. R-Truth's promo following the match gives me hope his heel persona will pay off.

Words can not describe how badly I want this angle between Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler to be over. We hear the same thing every week now, and the added foot stipulation did nothing to add interest into this match for me.


The tag team match was nothing special, but much like Punk's match, I was glad to see Nexus go over here to show that Kane and Show can be defeated.

I am impressed with Swagger's showing against John Cena and would like to see a future feud between the two, even though I'd love to see Swagger go babyface after abandoning Cole earlier in the show. I was a little confused as to why Cena was the one getting the better of The Miz as the show closed, but at least he showed aggression.

Overall, it was a decent show. It did an acceptable job building hype for Over the Limit, and also provided us with some limited in-ring action. 

Final Grade: B-