Raw Thoughts, Steamboat, & More - July 12, 2010

Welcome to the "I loved the RKO counter to the Air Bourne but I hated Sheamus running away like a little kid!!" edition of The Wrestling List.

Just some overall thoughts on Raw tonight. I thought it was a solid show overall. There were some things that made me annoyed obviously which I'll get into but I enjoyed the show for the most part. The focus continues to be on the Nexus group. They laid out attacks on several starts tonight and the night concluded with Cena in a handicap match against six members of the group. Cena was defeated but was able to avoid the beating to follow after he landed a punch to get free and went to grab a chair. Sheamus made his way out with a chair to help out Cena and Nexus bailed. Let's get into the night of Sheamus. Basically, he was confronted by Nexus backstage and he ran away. Ran away like a little kid!! All I could think was, are you kidding me? I'm talking about him running away cowardly. Yep, the big nasty brute of a heel just ran away from Nexus. That should be the guy that just fights them head on. They have done such a good job of building him up as this tough guy and they really hurt him tonight. You could hear the crowd laughing in the background. (Sigh). Move of the night was the RKO counter to the Air Bourne. Unbelievable. It was awesome and WWE knew it was because they replayed it about 20 times. LOL. Orton wrestled Edge in a fun match which ended with the money in the bank competitors getting involved. Bourne went for his revenge from last week on Orton. Orton was laying on the mat. As Bourne got in mid air, Orton got up and nailed a RKO. It looked AWESOME. The Hart Dynasty and The Uso's had a solid match which resulted in the Uso's getting the win going into the PPV title match this Sunday. Really hoping they don't even think of taking the belts off of the Harts. Really like them. I liked the segment with Dibiase and Maryse against Morrison. Good back and forth exchange that was entertaining. Mark Henry was put in the Money In The Bank match to replace R Truth playing off of the injury angle from last week. Henry faced Miz tonight but Miz destroyed him. Only unfortunate thing was that Henry didn't accidentally take out that GM podium or some cable to disable that thing when he ran into it. LOL. I can't stand the anonymous Raw GM deal. It's not entertaining and is just lame so far. I loved that the crowd gave Michael Cole the "what" treatment as he was reading the emails. Ok, I admit that I laughed at the Santino and Regal Brady Bunch show open spoof. How can you not laugh at Regal's face looking around at the Brady Bunch style boxes? The segment that followed with the laugh track. Yeah, not so good. The match, yeah, not so good. I can't believe I watched Doink wrestle on Raw in 2010. The match also featured guest host, Florence Henderson, who had a make out session with The Great Khali. Yeah, not so good. Gail Kim lost to Alicia Fox as Eve watched on from ringside. Poor Gail Kim. She was a huge star in TNA and has done nothing since her WWE return. Really is frustrating. I did enjoy Raw overall but had some things that left me frustrated.

TNA taped Impact tonight and it sounded like the end of the show was awesome. The closing angle is getting rave reviews from everyone that was in attendance. It involved the former ECW crew. Yeah, I'll have to check it out. The show will air this Thursday.

Ricky Steamboat remains in the hospital after suffering a serious medical condition. What is going on with him has been kept close to home and not let out. He appears to be on the road to recovery but the family has been asking for prayers for him over the last couple of weeks. I really couldn't stand hearing that news that he was in bad shape. My prayers go out to him on his continued recovery.

Wow, Jim Ross was left out of the new WWE history show open. Michael Cole's voice is now in there. I'm not a fan of JR being taken out of that at all. Why would you take JR out of there?

So, who got the better of the Priceless split? I vote for neither. LOL. I thought Cody had gotten the better of it just based on the fact that Dibiase has been losing all the time on Raw. Then, I heard the name "Dashing" Cody Rhodes and, well, I think that maybe Dibiase wins by default. LOL. I do like the pairing of Maryse with Dibiase. I like Maryse and think that she is a fun character. I laughed at the image from last week of her wearing Morrison's gear and then starting to do her rope pose with it.

ECW Barely Legal is currently airing on WWE Classics On Demand. This was ECW's first PPV of course and a great show. One of the most amazing stories to hear about still to this day is the talk of the power outage that happened right after the show went off the air. If you don't know the story, the ECW Arena wasn't exactly built to power all that equipment that they had going that night for a live PPV. They were pushing the limit on power restrictions all night. The power went off in the building about a couple of minutes after the show went off the air. They were that close to disaster with having a power outage knock their first PPV off the air. Barely Legal was a great show and was such a great moment for ECW to get to PPV.

There was a real classic match on Classics On Demand this week. The oldest Ric Flair match that I've seen as it was an AWA match from 1973. If I hadn't been told that it was Ric Flair, I wouldn't have even recognized him. A heavier and brown headed Flair with a very different style than we're used to. Really interesting to watch.

I recently watched this year's Royal Rumble and I thought it was a solid show. Seeing Shawn Michaels get in there and clean house looking to get that match with Undertaker at WrestleMania was an attention getter. The Rumble match is always fun and was this year as well. The Edge surprise return and win was awesome and the Atlanta crowd was going nuts for it.

The WWE Money In The Bank PPV is this Sunday and here is your lineup for it. Sheamus defends the WWE title against John Cena in a cage. World Champion Rey Mysterio defends against Jack Swagger. The Raw Money In The Bank match features Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho, The Miz, John Morrison, Ted Dibiase, Evan Bourne, and Mark Henry. Smackdown's Money In The Bank match includes Big Show, Matt Hardy, Christian, Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes, Kane, Drew McIntyre, and Dolph Ziggler. The Hart Dynasty defends the tag team titles against the Uso's. Divas Champion Alicia Fox defends against Eve. Layla defends the Women's title against Kelly Kelly.

Take care and God bless!!