By Will Pruett

- I'll echo what I said last week about crowds at Raw growing be leaps and bounds. Some of it may be the boost of having The Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker around, but even before they all returned Raw crowds were growing. This is an encouraging sign for WWE.

- Jerry Lawler in he ring hyping what would happen on the rest of Raw was an interesting way to open the show. I appreciated the attempt at doing something different.

- While some were down on the Rock Concert and John Cena rapping, I looked forward to it all week. The Rock was able to enhance his feuds with Steve Austin and Goldberg in 2003 and I felt he would be able to do the same on this show. John Cena blew us all away last year when he returned to rapping for one night against Rock. It was an odd selling point, but it was still a selling point to me.

- John Cena's rap may have abandoned the standards we are used to seeing from WWE, but it did make Cena's comments ring true. Even if WWE did abandon PG, there is no reason to abandon this approach. Save some strong words for the top guys, since their feuds should be the most important.

- While I enjoyed John Cena's rap, his look was ludicrous. I know what WWE was going for here, but that was the look he used in early 2003. It definitely gave The Rock some ammunition later in the show, but I don't see why WWE would make Cena look so silly. They are trying to rally fans to his side, not frighten them with his 2003 throwback mid-card wardrobe.

- Was Michael Cole supposed to make us feel like the Attitude Era was back by using the word "attitudinal" to refer to John Cena's rap all night? Why not just say controversial? Using attitudinal as the only adjective to describe the rap sounded corporate and forced.

- I was quite surprised to see Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus get as long of a match as they had on Raw. This was a good match between two great workers. The added bonus of furthering Daniel Bryan and Sheamus' feud via a luxury box interview was also enjoyable.

- Dolph Ziggler will be a breakout star after WrestleMania. There will be quite a few new vacancies at the top of the card and a lot of wrestlers vying for them, but I don't see how Ziggler does not end up in one of those spots. Even with his silly Billy Gunn-esque gimmick, he is one of the best acts in wrestling today.

- The 12-man General Manager tag team match at WrestleMania has a real chance of being very exciting and quite the crowd pleaser. Even though the story is a little off going into it, I appreciate the effort to integrate all of these wrestlers into the show in a semi-organic way.

- Mark Henry had the opportunity to look tough again and he took advantage of it. This is the Henry that WWE needs to get behind for a while. If they want to job him out after that push, do so and make a big deal out of his losses. There is just too much that he is good at. I sincerely hope this week was not just a reason to build him up for Cena next week. WWE needs to be more farsighted than that.

- Would it be more effective, no matter what happens, to keep Cena out of the ring until WrestleMania? I believe it would.

- The longer The Miz is kept off the WrestleMania card, the more I will believe that he is doing something major on the show. WWE is investing a lot of time in his story and I hope the payoff is worth it.

- Zack Ryder being strung along by Eve and being too dumb to realize it could be very entertaining. They do have an odd chemistry and Eve's performances have been pretty good. This is an angle I have found myself looking forward to the progress of.

- The real biggest story of this show was the return of my friend and yours "The Funkasaurus" Brodus Clay to TV. I would love to see him on the WrestleMania card somehow. This act is entertaining and enjoyable. I'm excited for chapter two, but after a long absence a return to chapter one hurt nothing.

- You would think I would be getting tired of raving about Undertaker angles going into WrestleMania. This will be the fourth year in a row that I cannot think of a negative word to say about the build to his match. His performances have been great thus far. Better than his performances on the mic have been Shawn Michaels'. Last week and this week he gave us a reason to believe that he would favor either man.

- Triple H, the last part of this Undertaker trifecta, was pitch perfect by giving the DX chop and leaving it at that. It built intrigue for the Hell in a Cell "End of an Era" match at WrestleMania and still delivered something entertaining in its own right. This segment wins.

- Being a fan of the show "Psych" I enjoyed what James Roday did on the show. He seemed like a true fan getting a chance to play around with the wrestlers and that is always refreshing to see.

- C.M. Punk and The Miz had a decent match. I'm surprised that WWE has never gone to this as a full-fledged feud. They have good chemistry int he ring and can do great work on the mic. Perhaps this is a full feud that they are saving for a rainy day.

- Chris Jericho's promo about C.M. Punk's father being an alcoholic was an okay angle, but it feels like an angle. Even if it is true, part of it seems over-written to me. Perhaps the idea was to enhance Jericho's ruthlessness? This was accomplished.

- Apparently Ring of Honor did something similar to this angle with Raven and Punk years ago. I never saw it and I doubt the majority of fans did, so it is still plenty new.

- One plus to this angle was that it put some sympathy on Punk. This has not happened in too long. Punk has been the overcoming babyface and was at risk of becoming almost Cena-esque. With this angle, they have the opportunity to show some vulnerability in his character.

- Randy Orton and Jack Swagger had a nice match at Extreme Rules 2010 for the World Championship. They also had a pretty good match on this episode of Raw, but Swagger meant less. Swagger looked tough in the match, but he really needs to be rebuilt to mean anything in WWE. It wouldn't take long and would pay off big time.

- Randy Orton is mildly frightened by Kane's pyro. That is apparently all the progression this feud needs.

- Christian returning to Smackdown should be entertaining on Friday, especially if the plan is to add him to the 12-man tag. He is a guy that found something very fun in his heel run and will hopefully continue that as he returns.

- I can't be the only person disappointed that The Rock did not wear his 2003 belt buckle, leather vest and earpiece microphone for his Rock Concert segment. I know that was an overblown heel look, but I should be rewarded for sitting through John Cena in a jersey and chain.

- I found Rock's promo before his first song to be on point and humorous. Yes, I know that the term "teletang" was used, but it made me chuckle. Don't judge.

- I don't feel like Rock and Cena were given the opportunity to get more intense in these segments, but they were given the opportunity to further their feud just a little. Another week of intensity may have hurt more than helped. This was a nice break from the very interesting and very intense build we have seem up to this point.

- The Rock did not know his own special lyrics to "We Will Rock You" which is disappointing. It's a tough song to keep up with at karaoke. Hopefully Rock will rehearse any future concerts to avoid a situation like that again.

- At the end of the show, Rock felt like Rock again. He didn't seem shaken by his inability to be Freddy Mercury, but rather he seemed to enjoy the crowd and play off of their energy like only he can. Now is the time to take that and roll it into intensity and make this feud pop again.

This was a very good episode of Raw. The Rock and John Cena were able to participate, but we're not the absolute highlights. Attention was payed to Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, along with Punk and Jericho. Plus, we even saw a little progression in Daniel Bryan and Sheamus' feud, if WWE continues down this path, they won't have the standard stumbling block on the way to WrestleMania.

There are two episodes left and WWE seems geared up and in position to deliver a strong one-two punch with these shows. I'm genuinely excited about WrestleMania and cannot wait to see how we get there.

Let's do some good old fashioned talking about this show! Feel free to email me at itswilltime@gmail.com or to follow me on twitter at twitter.com/itswilltime.

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