Raw 11-28-11

Well, that hiatus was longer than I expected, and I do apologize. But I'm back now! I'm not even going to bother trying to catch up on the last month's worth of events (in TNA's case, I haven't even seen half of them). We're just going to jump in head-first, like we never even left. Cool? Cool.

The matches:

1. Miz v. John Morrison - 3 out of 5.

2. Kelly Kelly & Alicia Fox v. The Bellas - 1 out of 5.

3. Dolph Ziggler v. Randy Orton - 3 out of 5.

4. Zack Ryder v. Jack Swagger - 3 out of 5.

5. CM Punk v. Alberto Del Rio - 4 out of 5.

With the definite exemption of Punk and ADR, the matches this Monday were a little under par for me. This could be because the special holiday edition of Smackdown was to follow the next night, who knows? There were some things accomplished here, however. Morrison was written off the air, since his contract is up (Goodbye Johnny! Enjoy your vacation while you wait the 90 days to begin your next endeavor!). Zack Ryder gained even more momentum towards a US Championship match, despite his bout with Swagger not being terribly exciting. And CM Punk proved that he was more wiley than his opponent and kept his title. Divas matches accomplish nothing anymore, and Ziggler's match with Orton was just there to remind us that Zigs is AMAZING in the ring.

Since my last review, WWE has released a pair of interesting promos. The first is the return of Kane, and it looks like the mask could be back. 90s marks like myself are flipping out at this idea. Mehe has an amazing WrestleMania match playing in her head that is so awesome I could not do it justice. A masked Kane could easily destroy half the roster before his reign of terror is over, and I am looking forward to each and every minute of it. This is, of course, assuming that WWE doesn't fumble. Again.

The second vignette, however, is the one that's really got the internet abuzz with speculation. We at least know by the narration that we have only a month to wait ("the second day of 2012"), and I suspect by then there will be newer, alternate versions that will give us a better clue as to who to expect. The most popular opinion, of course, is Chris Jericho. The occasional glitching out of the twitter identifier (along with other references in the script) supports this theory. The prophetic phrasing of the script could point to the Undertaker (and the fact that the vignette is running in parallel to the Kane promo doesn't hurt the idea of either a reunion or a feud). The idea of a force to be reckoned with could also allude to WWE's view of Batista, who is suddenly promising CRAZY announcements after the New Year. Heck, I've even seen people playing the crazy conspiracy numbers game and coming up with JBL (nice try, by the way). Like I said, at this point, it is anyone's guess, and I'm going to try to keep my mind and my ears open for anything.