Raw last night

Was ... OK.

Some strong points included the Rey Mysterio-Evan Bourne vs. Cody Rhodes-Ted Dibiase match; top notch tag match. I'm finally even quasi-interested in the Mysterio-Kane feud after last night, it was the first time they've really piqued my interest with this convoluted, poorly-explained, incomprehensible story.

Chris Jericho delivered a strong promo as usual, although it was a letdown that Shawn Michaels wasn't there to pursue their storyline, especially now that Chris Jericho is the world title holder. I also disapproved of Mike Adamle announcing two main events last night - last night's event of Jericho vs. Batista, and next week's of Jericho vs. former world champion CM Punk in a steel cage. The latter was arguably the bigger main event, and he teased it for next week - taking the air right out of the crowd, who can't honestly be expected to get hyped about a match next week, when they paid to be here THIS week. And that next week's match, when placed side by side with last night's, is the bigger draw, was a slap in the face to the live audience ... not to mention information overload and too much hype for the rest of us, for either match to be given the full recognition they should.

Batista-Jericho wasn't even then delivered upon, turning into a Jericho-JBL vs. Batista handicap match. Besides ignoring the ugly and painful history between JBL and Jericho (we MUST like each other now, we're both heels, yaaaay!), it was a letdown from even the small scraps the live fans were given as a main event.

Otherwise it was just OK - everyone did their job, and there were no real moments that stood out as nonsensical (other than the ones mentioned) or weak ... it just didn't feel especially strong either. On a 10-point scale, I'd give this Raw a 5 or 6 for not sucking, but for nonetheless feeling a bit phoned-in the night after a PPV ... and a PPV which left us a lot of meat to pick off the bone and should have resulted in a fascinating Raw. It's too bad that a lot of the compelling storylines of Unforgiven resulted in injury angles or quasi-injury angles (Jericho, Punk), which didn't allow for them to be capitalized on right away ... because some momentum was indisputably lost by the lack of immediate followup last night, and I hope WWE gets back into full swing gearing up for No Mercy and Survivor Series over the rest of the week on the other brands, and then Monday again on Raw.

And WE will be back into full swing tomorrow night with a full-length episode of In This Very Ring ... it might go up closer to midnight than 10pm as Ari and I have plans until about 9:30/10 o'clock, but it will be there. Hope you tune in then, and we look forward to seeing you ... In This Very Ring!