WWE Raw thoughts, 2012-03-12

Sigh. After the first hour of tonight's show, I thought it was shaping up to be a really great episode. Oh how wrong I was. Tonight reinforced my feeling more than ever, I completely agree with what John Cena said a few weeks ago: The best part of this year's Wrestlemania will be when it's over and Rocky is gone again and John Cena and Raw can both go back to doing things that have a chance to be entertaining. Jesus I am so fucking sick of the Rock on my TV.

The ironic thing is, I was pleasantly surprised how well the Cena rap bit went. Cena dressed up as 2005 John Cena, right down to how he carried himself, was actually kinda cool. Finally, after a year of hyping the Rock, finally they did a nostalgia bit from a time I actually have some nostalgia for. The rap itself wasn't great, though I was, as I said, pleasantly surprised by how little misogyny and homophobia was used in the rap, especially compared to Cena's raps about Rocky last year. So, kudos to John Cena for that.

Then came Rocky's bit. Sometimes I think I go a bit overboard when I say that Rocky's entire act is nothing sexist and homophobic jokes, with a bit of "I'm cool because I said 'bitch.' Tee-hee, 'bitch.'" thrown in. But god damn if tonight didn't show me to be 100% fucking correct. Rocky is officially at the same level of disinterest as Randy Orton during his Three Years of Suck. I came closer to turning off Raw tonight than I ever have before, the only reason I didn't was because I thought there was a chance Cena would come out to interrupt at some point and I didn't want to miss that.

My main takeaway from all of this is that I think I may finally understand the Cena haters. The Rock has enlightened me, because I find myself kind of angry about how much I dislike Rocky. Like, I've been watching and enjoying this show for seven years, and now this guy has shown up out of nowhere and essentially taken over the show and fucking ruined it. I'm angry that he's taken something I used to enjoy and turned it into something I don't like at all. I'm angry that the man who ruined the show for me is hyped by the show itself and lauded by other viewers as exactly the opposite, that the things I enjoyed were supposedly shite and this new thing I can't stand is supposedly the best thing evar. And I imagine that's kind of how some people feel about John Cena.

- Let's get the rest of the bad out of the way so I can finish with the good stuff: Jericho cutting a looooong promo about Punk's alcoholic father and how he's going to make Punk an alcoholic? Not necessary. I hate when wrestling tries to do overly personal shit like this. Why can't they just fight over who's really the best wrestler in the world? That promo they had two weeks ago was so good, I was completely sold on the feud at that point. Now I'm just uncomfortable. I really think sometimes that WWE writers are so used to building to a PPV every three weeks, when it comes around to Wrestlemania and they have so much extra time they don't know how to stretch a feud that long. With the exception of Long-Laurinaitis, and Orton-Kane due to Orton's injury delaying the start of that feud, every feud running into Wrestlemania was at a better place two weeks ago than it is now. The writers just don't know when to quit.

- H-Taker II(I): I could not give less of a shit about this match.

- Sheamus-Dolph was a good little match, but by far the best thing about it was the interview with Daniel Bryan and AJ in the stands. They two of them continue to play their relationship so freaking well. The was AJ looked down and away after saying Bryan wasn't rude to her? Freaking perfect. These two work so well off of each other, kudos to whoever decided to pair them up. I'd love to see them as a face couple eventually. Yes that contradicts what I said last week about Kaitlyn running an intervention to get AJ away from this controlling, manipulative douchebag. I can desire to mutually exclusive things. I contain multitudes.

- Everything about the Teddy Long-John Laurinaitis feud is incredibly entertaining to me. Santino Marella is awesome at everything he does. Mark Henry is completely awesome at everything he does. David Otunga, I'm still more of a fan of him in a sweater vest with a sippy cup than I am of him in the ring, though I guess he has to make the transition at some point. Even Aksana I'm liking way more now as more of a traditional babyface/girlfriend character than six months of making Teddy Long jittery. And the way Johnny Ace sold that shove tonight, where he basically ended up ass-over-teakettle in Michael Cole's lap, that was outstanding. That deserves some kind of fucking award for heel stooging.

- The fact that they've made The Rudos of Raw vs. Teddadore's Army a 12-man match instead of a 6- or 8-man match just shows you how many guys they have no clue how to fit onto the card when three of the top four spots on the card are taken up by folks who aren't part of the main roster - four of the top six spots if you count Jericho. Plus, they're really short on faces to fill out a six-man team. The heel team is going to be five former world champions and David Otunga, while Santino will probably be the biggest star on the face team.

- Finally, the Funkasaurus is back! Oh how I've missed his funky visage. Though I preferred his old finisher, that flying crossbody was way swanker than just another big splash.