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‘Monday Night Raw’ recap: The Chris Jericho saga continues

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On this week’s ‘Monday Night Raw,’ Chris Jericho returned and again stole the show by not saying a word.

The good: Jericho again came out about 90 minutes into the show, introduced as ‘the only man to defeat Steve Austin and The Rock on the same night.’ Interestingly, the heel Jericho would always point that out.

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After the intro, Jericho came out in the same electric jacket he used last week. He came into the ring, led the cheers and grabbed the microphone to talk. But he then appeared to be overcome with emotion, with tears coming to his eyes, and he walked away, too emotional to say anything in the ring.

This was obviously another step in whatever master plan Jericho has cooked up for his return. Hopefully, we’ll get the payoff next week, because going to the ‘I’m too emotional to talk’ well three times in a row could backfire.

The bad: So the producers spend weeks building up the return of the masked Kane. They build him up as the old, unstoppable mysterious Kane, the way he was before he started wrestling without the mask a few years ago. Everyone I know was looking forward to the return of the mysterious masked Kane. I imagined weeks of him coming to the ring, destroying whoever was there, then going to the back without so much as a whisper from him.

Instead, what do they do? For the second time in three weeks, he cuts a five-minute, long-winded, boring promo. I don’t remember Frankenstein having a five-minute monologue in any of his movies. Or Jason. Yes, nothing says unstoppable monster quite like a five-minute monologue. Why not have him appear on ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ and be interviewed by James Lipton next? That will really scare people.

The mystifying: I was hoping it was part of an angle, but it looks like one of the worst blown ref spots in history happened during the match pitting CM Punk against Jack Swagger.

Punk hit a top-rope elbow, and Swagger clearly kicked out before the ref counted three. For some reason, the ref had a brain freeze, thought the match was over and called for the bell as Punk was putting Swagger in the anaconda vise.

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When the bell rang, a visibly irritated Punk got up and yelled at the ref. It really looked bad, ruined the match and detracted from the story of the match, which was that if Punk won, Swagger and Vickie Guerrero would be banned from ringside during Punk’s Royal Rumble match with Dolph Ziggler. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in that ref’s shoes when Vince McMahon got a hold of him.

The really mystifying: So, Eve Torres goes to the ring to wrestle, but before the opponent is announced, Kane’s music hits, causing Eve to become terrified. Zack Ryder, who asked Eve out on a date earlier in the show, rushes out and leads Eve away by the hand to his car before Kane, who has also been stalking Ryder throughout the show, can attack either of them.

When Ryder gets to his car, he notices he has a flat tire. Now ask yourself a question: If you were being pursued by a person who has promised to ‘drag you to hell’ and your car had a flat tire, what would you do? I’ll tell you what Ryder did: He started changing the tire. Excuse me? There were literally dozens of ways for Ryder to escape the situation. Stopping to change his flat wasn’t one of them.

If you want fans to get behind a baby-face and cheer him, it helps a lot if you don’t make him look like a total moron.

All in all, a poor week for ‘Monday Night Raw.’ Here’s hoping next week’s show, coming to you live from Anaheim, will be better.

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-- Houston Mitchell

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