Swingometer – Scoring Monday Night Raw
Usual drill, scoring each segment on a -5 to +5 scale, add them up to give an overall score of Raw:
Segment 1: CM Punk WWE Title promo w/ Laurinaitis. Score: +2
Punk was at his usual best without saying anything too ground-breaking. Laurinaitis not doing what Punk and the fans want could be a good way of building heat on him, even if he does suck all the life out of the room.
Running Score: +2
Segment 2: Alberto Del Rio def. Zack Ryder. Score: +1
Good to see Del Rio picking up a win, although I'm not sure Ryder was the best guy to feed him to. Good enough for a point though.
Running Score: +3 (+2,+1)
Segment 3: Sheamus def. Jack Swagger. Score: +1
Another minor positive. Sheamus is on a nice little roll, although he needs a new feud to spark some interest in his character.
Running Score: +4 (+2,+1,+1)
Side note: Cryptic videos. Score: +3
No, you can't do these very often, and two at once might be pushing things – even if one is Kane. One for the online fans, and we certainly had fun on the Wrestlezone Twitter (follow us using the button on the right hand side of this page!) try to work out who it was. The best tweet was the person who pointed out “it begins” is an anagram of “I be Sting”!
Running Score: +7 (+2,+1,+1,+3)
Segment 4: Nash promo. Score: +1
Too short to be a big hit, but did a nice job of keeping the storyline ticking over. They're right to keep this out of the way of The Rock's return and Punk winning the WWE Title. Maybe it was because Nash's and HHH's egos couldn't take being third in the pecking order, but it turned out right.
Running Score: +8 (+2,+1,+1,+3,+1)
Segment 5: Cody Rhodes promo & match against Santino Score: +2
A decent promo, a victory for Cody. Nothing remarkable but good to see Cody has some people behind him. Him and Booker could work, so we'll see where that goes.
Running Score: +10 (+2,+1,+1,+3,+1,+2)
Segment 6: Dolph Ziggler vs CM Punk Score: +4
What a match! I've been running through my head about who the breakout star would be in the end of year review that I'm planning. And there's merit behind Punk, Ryder and Mark Henry, but Dolph Ziggler has been immense. If this was an audition for a Wrestlemania 28 Title match then they sure passed. Add some context to these guys and they could blow the roof off at Mania next April.
Running Score: +14 (+2,+1,+1,+3,+1,+2,+4)
Segment 7: Big Show promo. Score: +1
Not much to say here, just a decent promo from Show that added a layer to the World title story.
Running Score: +15 (+2,+1,+1,+3,+1,+2,+4,+1)
Segment 8: Wade Barrett def. Kofi Kingston w/ Randy Orton. Score: +2
Well in theory Evan Bourne is back soon, so Kofi's jobbing streak will be over. Great to see Barrett in a high profile program with Orton, although they need to add a couple of layers to this story to make it a bit more interesting. Plenty of time for that though.
Running Score: +17 (+2,+1,+1,+3,+1,+2,+4,+1,+2)
Segment 9: John Cena promo, Awesome Truth split. Score: 0
Cena never really had anywhere to go with this promo. Although he was right when he said nobody cares about Awesome Truth. The split was a surprise, although I'm not sure why we should care about them in a feud when we didn't care about them in a tag team.
End score: +17 (+2,+1,+1,+3,+1,+2,+4,+1,+2, 0)
Average segment score: 1.7
This show flew by. Was there anything memorable, other than the Ziggler Punk match – probably not. But each segment achieved something, and for an average Raw that's all they should be striving for. Haven't been doing this long enough to work out how good a +17 score is, but it seems pretty high. Can't remember many better Raw's this year though…
If you want to follow along with the live Swingometer every Monday night, be sure to follow me on Twitter @bobbybamber.
