Monday Night Raw SuperShow Review - July 2, 2012

AJ sends WWE Champion CM Punk spiraling through a table.

Great opening segment featuring John Cena, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Kane, Big Show, and Chris Jericho. Everyone's interference was logical and it helped promote both huge matches at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view. Everyone also played their part well and having Show dominate everyone to end the promo was a nice way of getting him over as a monster heel.

Throwaway eight-man tag team match with WWE Champions Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, United States Champion Santino Marella and Intercontinental Champion Christian defeating the Prime Time Players, Cody Rhodes, and David Otunga. It was a good spot for the opening match, but it wasn't given enough time. Having the Prime Time Players continuing to walk out during their matches will help garner heat while Cody's walkout on Otunga also made sense after what occurred last week on SmackDown. Brodus Clay's attack on Otunga was fine, but stacking the odds against Otunga didn't seem like a face thing to do in my opinion.

Effective segment with Alberto Del Rio attacking Sin Cara prior to their match starting. Sin Cara wasn't really all that much of a surprise, but he received a pretty good pop because of it. It's interesting to see them send out Sin Cara to get decimated by Del Rio, since Cara just recently returned and it seemed as if they were pushing him upon his comeback. Nonetheless, it helped get the heat on Del Rio that he desperately needed going into his World Heavyweight Championship match and made him come off as extremely aggressive.

Solid promo from Paul Heyman. Heyman is almost always a gem on the mic, and this segment was no exception. The tone in his voice and his facial expressions certainly sold me on what he was saying, and promoting Brock Lesnar's announcement for the 1000th edition of Raw is a brilliant move. I'm slowly getting more excited for this HHH/Lesnar SummerSlam encounter, especially with Heyman as Lesnar's mouthpiece.

Fine mixed tag team match with World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus and AJ defeating Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero. Sheamus and Ziggler did a majority of the in-ring work, which was obvious, but I'll never get tired of seeing Ziggler sell that Brogue Kick like a champ. AJ getting the pin-fall victory at the end was also a nice touch.

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Tyson Kidd shockingly pins Tensai for the upset victory.

Fun segment featuring Heath Slater, Doink the Clown, and the returning DDP. Slater is undoubtedly growing on me, and I'm starting to find him intentionally hilarious. Nonetheless, giving him a win over Doink made him look at least somewhat credible before DDP came out and delivered an awesome Diamond Cutter on him. Speaking of DDP, he look absolutely great for a guy at the age of 56 and it was a fun flashback for those familiar with his work in WWE and WCW.

Decent match between Big Show and Kane. Adding the No Disqualification stipulation helped them work around their limited skills in the ring and made the contest a bit more watchable. Giving Show the victory helped him look more dominant, but making Kane lose clean hurts his credibility to an extent. All in all, it was an effective plug for the WWE Championship Money in the Bank Ladder Match.

Brief match with Tyson Kidd quickly defeating Tensai. Sure, the loss makes Tensai look pretty weak, but it does wonders for Kidd. The commentators also did their best in putting over Kidd, who I'm very glad they're finally putting some focus on now since he's deserving of the push he's receiving. Tensai, on the other hand, looks to be going through some more repackaging by attacking his manager Sakamoto. However, he did that a few weeks back as well, and nothing changed, but time will tell.

Good tag team match with WWE Champion CM Punk and John Cena against Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan. I enjoyed the fact that the commentators were referring to how much Bryan and Punk have progressed since a year ago, which helped hype their match significantly. The in-ring work was what it was, but since Jericho and Cena were doing a majority of it, there was a handful of botches that ruined for this viewer. Nonetheless, the non-finish of the bout with AJ sending Bryan and Punk spiraling through a table was innovative and intriguing. As I've said before, AJ continues to be the most entertaining act WWE has to offer at the moment and having this angle close the show was a very smart move.

Overall, a pretty good show that successfully built towards the Money in the Bank pay-per-view in two weeks by promoting each of the advertised match-ups on the card. The action as a whole on this show was fine for what it was, but nothing all that memorable. That being said, this show was easily one of the most entertaining Raws WWE has produced in recent weeks, especially in the second hour.

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