WWE ‘Monday Night Raw’ recap – April 30, 2012

On worked injuries

The past few days saw WWE kick up their use of worked injuries in storylines: Beth Phoenix lost the Divas Title following a storyline ankle injury and then was unable to participate in her rematch at Extreme Rules, John Cena teased some kind of serious arm injury at Extreme Rules and most recently, on this week’s Monday Night Raw WWE claimed that Brock Lesnar broke Triple H’s arm with his Kimura Lock. All of the above are extremely useful story pieces, with the first explaining why a Divas as dominant as Phoenix could lose her title to Nikki Bella and the others putting Lesnar over as an absolute monster, but I have to wonder about the long-term wisdom of booking all these fake injuries.

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WWE recaps and previews

If you’re here looking for links to a recap of this week’s Monday Night Raw or even a preview for this week’s Friday Night SmackDown, I’ve got some bad news for you, friend: It just ain’t happening this week.

Thing is, I’m on a trip to Japan visiting friends right now, so it’s just not feasible for me to do my regular wrestling writing stuff at the high quality that each and every one of you so richly deserve. Don’t worry though, because regular service will be resuming once I return laden with spices from my visit to the mysterious Orient. While I’ll miss the April 22 Raw, I’ll be ready to go for the April 26 SmackDown, so stay tuned!

Also, as a special treat, I’ll be writing up an All-Japan Pro Wrestling event I plan on attending in Tokyo on April 21, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well.

WWE Monday Night Raw recap – April 9, 2012

The future of WWE?

On this week’s Monday Night Raw, John Laurinaitis referred to Brock Lesnar as the future of WWE. Of course, this is a little strange considering that Brock already had a WWE heyday around a decade ago. While it’s probably not how Johnny Ace meant it, I think that he could very well be onto something here, as the return run of Brock (and the Rock before him) points toward a different way of booking main event wrestling feuds.

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WWE Monday Night Raw recap – April 2, 2012

The big news on this week’s post-WrestleMania XXVIII Monday Night Raw was, quite obviously, the returning Brock Lesnar, who followed in the Rock’s footsteps by coming out and making John Cena look like an absolute joke. I’m a Brock fan, and would be excited about this match even if his t-shirt logo didn’t look like the most awesome Danzig/Swamp Thing hybrid imaginable. Back when I worked at WWE, mentioning Brock on the website was absolutely verboten, even though the guy was a huge mainstream star during his run as UFC Heavyweight Champion. It was a perfect example of WWE cutting off their nose to spite their face, so I’m glad they’ve finally gotten tired of getting nosejobs (to stretch an metaphor).

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WWE Monday Night Raw recap – March 26, 2012

It’s the go-home show to WrestleMania XXVIII, and as you might expect, this week’s Monday Night Raw was entertaining, if a little forgettable. But, the show opened with a good match, finished casting the Team Teddy vs. Team Johnny match (only to raise another question mark later in the show) and the Funkasaurus made an appearance, so who could complain?

This also marks the second week that our Raw recap has lived at its new home of GuySpeed.com. So, change all those old UGO and Lords of Pain links, because if you’re looking for good ol’ Shitterson, GuySpeed is the place to find me. Best of all, no more Good, Bad and Ugly – Spring is upon us and we’re getting more positive with things. Check it out and leave a comment to tell us what you think. And when you’re done, make sure you also get ready for this weekend’s big show with our WrestleMania XXVIII preview.

Raw recap – March 26, 2012

WWE Monday Night Raw recap – March 19, 2012

This week’s Raw recap is now live, but eagle-eyed readers will notice something very different about the piece: It’s firmly installed in its new home at GuySpeed.com. I’m going to be doing “Best of…”-style Raw recaps that go live every Tuesday morning, but as opposed to the larger, more expansive focus of the “Good, Bad & Ugly” series, I’ll instead be focusing on the six most important segments or moments from the show – the stuff you’ll want to be conversant in at the watercooler this week, assuming you work with a bunch of marks.

Also, starting this Thursday, we’ll also be running pieces for SmackDown. Since I started doing “Good, Bad & Ugly” for Raw, a lot of people have requested that I do the same for WWE’s Friday night show, but unfortunately, with the timing of it, with internet traffic dropping off over the weekend, and the newscycle having moved on by Monday, it just didn’t make sense. So, instead of a weekly review, we’ll be doing SmackDown previews, where I discuss the announced matches, dirt sheet reports and ongoing storylines, anticipating all the stuff you’ll see come Friday night.

All of this is a work in progress though, as GuySpeed’s audience is no doubt different from UGO’s, so please, let us know what you’d like to see from your internet wrestling writing. More detail and analysis? Less recap? Diva pictures to ogle? Whatever it is, tell us in the comments of this week’s recap. And of course, if you don’t already, please come follow me on Twitter – it’s the best place to keep up to date with my writing and projects across the web, and/or read snarky 140 character comments during your favorite wrestling shows.

WWE Monday Night Raw recap – March 19, 2012

WWE Monday Night Raw Recap – March 12, 2012

Traditionally, the early months of every year are some of the most exciting in WWE, as they see the company gear up for not one, but two of its largest pay-per-view events: Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. This year, however, the momentum and build for the biggest show in the WWE has moved in fits and starts. I’ll readily admit that doing weeklyRawwrite-ups might have me being more critical than normal, but it seems that for every great moment, like a biting Cena promo, there’s an insufferable “Rock Concert” to end the show, dragging it back down.

That said, this week’sMonday Night Raw did have some good moments, and I enjoyed Cena’s return to his circa-2003 gimmick way more than a grown-ass man should. There was a decent Ziggler/Sheamus match, a cool development in the Punk/Jericho match and I’m growing to really enjoy Otunga’s heel work. But the rest of the show really felt like filler as the WWE struggled to keep all its feuds going without introducing any new twists, complications or stakes. Not exactly how I’d build toward the biggest moneymaker of the year.

Finally, a reminder: We lost our link on Lords of Pain, which is where most of our readership learned about us and continued to find us each week. So, make sure you share the love by Tweeting and Facebooking this week’s article. And keep up to date with the newest UGO wrestling content by following me on Twitter and bookmarking the Raw: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly landing page.

WWE Monday Night Raw recap – March 12, 2012

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